Spouses With Benefits
by skywalkersamidala
Summary: Anakin and Padmé wake up after a wild night in Vegas and discover they accidentally got married—and that Ahsoka posted about it all over social media, so now every single person they know knows about it. To save face, they decide to pretend it was intentional and remain married for 6 months before quietly divorcing. But a lot can change in 6 months... (Modern AU)
1. Chapter 1

**I feel like it's been ages since I've posted anything longer than a oneshot, but I'm back again with a nice lil 5-chapter fic! (Technically 6, but the epilogue is so short it hardly counts.) This fic isn't quite M in my opinion but is probably too much for Teen, so I erred on the side of a higher rating to be safe.**

 **If any of you have read my fic "The Anakin Disaster," this one's a variation on that one's classic theme of Anakin And Padme Get Drunk And Do Something Stupid, With Life-Altering Consequences. So, good times ahead! I found myself laughing out loud while writing the majority of this fic, so if you have even half as much fun reading it as I did writing it I'll be satisfied :D enjoy!**

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Anakin was pretty sure he was dead. That was the only possible explanation. Either that or a horde of goblins had whacked his head repeatedly with hammers while he slept.

He sat up slowly, cracking one eye open ever so slightly and still managing to go blind from the sunlight coming in through the window. Wincing, he hastily slammed his eyes shut again and put his head in his hands, trying to get a handle on his life. In all honesty, he wasn't even sure where he was at the moment.

His headache was so bad that it took Anakin several minutes to realize there was something digging into his forehead. He reluctantly lifted his head up again and looked at his left hand, frowning as he saw a cheap plastic ring on his fourth finger. Strange. He didn't recognize that ring and was pretty sure he hadn't had it the day before.

But the ring suddenly became the least of his worries as he felt something touch his thigh. Anakin yelped and leaped out of bed, and as he turned back around he saw that there was a hand sticking out from under the mound of blankets beside where he'd been sleeping. A left hand that also had a plastic ring on its fourth finger.

What had _happened_ last night? Had Anakin slept with someone? He didn't _think_ so, and the fact that he seemed to have passed out in bed fully dressed also indicated there hadn't been any sort of nakedness involved. He tried and failed to smooth the wrinkles out of his shirt, his sluggish brain working overtime to remember details from last night.

The good news was that Anakin now knew where he was: in Las Vegas for Ahsoka's bachelorette party. She was the first of their friend group to get married, so they'd decided to splurge on a weekend in Vegas as one last hurrah before married life started picking them all off one by one, as it surely would in the next several years. Obi-Wan and Satine were engaged already, as were Bail and Breha. And Sabé and Rabé had been dating for several years now, Dormé and her new boyfriend seemed to be heading in a serious direction…come to think of it, Anakin was the only single person left in their group, aside from Padmé.

Padmé. The thought stopped him short. His gut told him that she'd been involved somehow in last night's shenanigans, but he wasn't sure how, given that he still didn't know exactly what the shenanigans even were. Anakin's eyes fell again on the hand of the still-sleeping person, and his heart jumped into his throat as he wondered…could it be…?

Only one way to find out.

He took a deep breath, then threw back the covers and let out a horrified squeak as he saw that although she was lying on her stomach facedown, it was clearly Padmé. He'd recognize that head of hair anywhere. She was fully-clothed too, thank God, but Anakin's brain was still exploding with a million questions about what could have led him to fall asleep sharing a bed with his very platonic friend, especially since none of their other friends were anywhere in sight.

Yes, the hotel room was deserted except for the two of them. Oh God, were they even still in Vegas? What if he and Padmé had run off somewhere by themselves for some inexplicable reason? Anakin hurried over to the window and opened the curtains, sighing in relief when he saw the familiar skyline. So they _were_ still in Vegas, but he and Padmé had somehow gotten separated from the rest of their friends.

It was at that moment that Anakin noticed a piece of paper lying on the desk beside the window. He picked it up for a closer look and almost fainted.

It was a marriage certificate. And the two names on it were _Anakin Skywalker_ and _Padmé Amidala Naberrie._

Anakin frantically scanned the whole piece of paper, looking for some sign that it was a fake. But no, there were their signatures and the officiant's signature, dated with yesterday's date. Still, surely—surely this was some sort of prank, maybe Anakin and Padmé had been so drunk the night before that their friends had decided to give them a little scare this morning, knowing they probably wouldn't be able to remember much of what had happened. But why would Anakin and Padmé be the ones to get pranked? It was Ahsoka's bachelorette party, if any pranking was being done _she_ should be the recipient.

Anakin considered tracking down his friends to ask them for details, but if it _was_ a prank they'd just lie to him about what had really happened. Plus he still didn't know where anyone else was. But Padmé was right here with him and probably wouldn't be involved in the potential prank. And she usually never ever got blackout drunk because she'd been a responsible adult ever since they'd met freshman year of college and in Anakin's opinion had probably come out of the womb as a responsible adult, so maybe she'd actually remember the previous night.

He tentatively poked her. "Padmé." Snore. "Padmé," he said, a little louder. Why had he never known how loud she snored? Oh, that's right, probably because he'd never had any cause to share a fucking _bed_ with her before.

"Padmé," Anakin said even louder, and finally he resorted to shaking her vigorously.

Padmé whined in protest and flailed her arm in his general direction. Anakin hastily stepped back, not doubting for a second that even hungover and half-asleep Padmé would be coordinated enough to land a solid punch. "Padmé, wake up," he said from his safe distance away.

"Shut up," she moaned, burrowing her face deeper in the pillow.

"Padmé, it's an emergency. I need your help."

"I hope you die."

Time to pull out the big guns. "I think we might've gotten married last night," Anakin blurted out.

Silence. At last she rolled over to face him and squinted at him. "What?"

Anakin shoved the marriage certificate in her face. "At first I thought maybe it was a prank or something, but this looks pretty legit," he said anxiously. "And we're both wearing matching rings on our ring fingers that I've never seen before, so we must've gotten them last night…"

Padmé stared at the certificate for a minute, then looked back and forth between the rings several times. "Oh no," she said. "Oh no, oh no, oh—"

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. "I'll get it," Anakin said, hurrying over and praying it would be someone who might help them make sense of the situation.

As luck would have it, it was Ahsoka. Not so lucky? The fact that the first words out of her mouth were, "So how are the newlyweds? I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Ahsoka, what the _fuck_ happened last night?" Anakin asked, ushering her inside the room and shutting the door.

"The way I remember it, I was having a grand old time at my bachelorette party until you two party-poopers started whining about how single you are, so I was like 'why don't you marry each other then' and you were like 'hey, that's a good idea' and you dragged us all to the chapel and you got married and then you bragged about it at the front desk when we got back to the hotel so they gave you the honeymoon suite for the night, and that was the last the rest of us saw of you."

Anakin and Padmé both gaped at her. "You're making that up," Anakin said weakly.

"Am not," Ahsoka said, looking positively gleeful. "Here's proof."

She scrolled through her phone, then held it out to them a pressed play on a video. And there were Anakin and Padmé standing in front of an officiant, who was saying something Anakin couldn't hear due to Ahsoka's hysterical laughter in the video. Unfortunately, she quieted down in time for him to hear clear as day, "By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife." Even more unfortunately, Video Anakin leaned in and kissed Video Padmé square on the lips while all their friends cheered.

"No," Current Anakin said. "No way, you—you forged that or something."

"Yes, I who nearly flunked out of our intro to computer science class somehow figured out how to forge an iPhone video," Ahsoka said sarcastically. "That's one hundred percent real, dumbass. Not _my_ fault you two are horrible decision-makers when you're wasted."

"Why was Padmé even wasted? She never does that!"

"Excuse _me_ for letting my hair down and actually enjoying myself the _one_ time we didn't need anyone to be the designated driver," Padmé snapped. Her expression had moved from bewildered to pissed off remarkably quickly. Apparently she was angry when she was hungover. Not that Anakin would know since he'd so rarely seen her get drunk enough to be hungover.

"Okay, well, we'll just—we'll just go to city hall or whatever right now and get the marriage annulled before anyone else finds out," Anakin said, trying to be the voice of reason, which was a new thing for him. "No big deal."

Ahsoka grimaced. "Yeah, about that…"

"What?" he asked, dread pooling in his stomach.

"Uh…I _might_ have told a few people about it…"

Padmé and Anakin stared at her in horror for a second before both diving for their own phones. _"Shit,"_ Anakin said when he saw that he had several dozen texts and even a few voicemails. He scrolled through the texts first and saw that just about every single person he knew had texted him sincere congratulations without appearing to have any idea that the wedding was a drunk accident. Anakin felt nauseous. Unless that was just because of his hangover.

Then he saw that one of the voicemails was from his mother. Yeah, this definitely wasn't hangover-nausea. With great trepidation, Anakin hit play on the voicemail and held the phone up to his ear.

"Ani! I just saw Ahsoka post on Facebook that you and Padmé got married?" said Shmi's bewildered yet weirdly thrilled voice. "I didn't even know you were dating! How long have you been together? Why didn't you ever tell me? I'm sorry for all the times I teased you about having feelings for her, is that why you didn't want to tell me you were actually together? You thought I'd laugh at you or say I told you so? I never would've done that, you're my _son,_ you never have to be too embarrassed to tell me things. Anyway, I'm not quite sure what's going on and I look forward to a more detailed explanation from you when you get the chance, but I'm so happy for you, Ani, and for Padmé, I always thought you'd be just perfect for each other. I _am_ disappointed I wasn't at the ceremony, and a little hurt, but Ahsoka's Facebook post made it seem like it was a bit of a romantic, spontaneous thing, so maybe you two would consider doing a second ceremony at some point, a proper one with me and Padmé's family all there? Well, anyway, congratulations, honey. And please call me back."

"Ahsoka!" Anakin practically screeched after the message ended. "You posted about it on _Facebook_ for my _mother_ to see? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"It was a beautiful moment and I wanted to tell everyone about it!" she cried. "Also, I was almost as wasted as you two were."

Anakin frantically pulled up Ahsoka's Facebook page to see how bad the damage was. There was a horrendously incriminating picture of him and Padmé kissing in front of the officiant. And nothing in the picture indicated that they were drunk off their asses and not thinking straight. Ahsoka's caption read, _Nothing better than when your BFFs spontaneously tie the knot! Congrats Anakin and Padmé! #truelove_

"What is wrong with you?" Anakin shouted again. "Hashtag true love? Are you kidding me? And you tagged us both in the post to make sure every single one of _our_ Facebook friends would see it in addition to every single one of _your_ friends?"

"I don't know which one of you I want to murder more right now," Padmé said, finally looking up from her phone to glare at them.

"Obviously Ahsoka, I didn't do anything wrong!" Anakin said indignantly. "We were both drunk and she—she _manipulated_ us into it and then told the whole world about it!"

"Manipulated? What am I, an evil mastermind? I just _sarcastically_ said you should get married and your idiot selves are the ones who decided to take it literally."

"But you didn't have to _tell_ anyone about it afterwards!"

"Drunk Ahsoka loves love, okay?!"

"Everyone shut up, my head hurts," Padmé interrupted. "Ahsoka, Anakin and I need some time alone to figure out what to do about this. Tell everyone else we'll meet you guys somewhere in a little while. And tell them not to say anything about this to anyone else, not that there's anyone who doesn't already know, apparently."

Just then, Anakin's jaw dropped as he saw an awkward congratulations email from his, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan's boss. "You told _Mace Windu?"_

"I…may or may not have emailed the whole office," Ahsoka said in a would-be innocent voice.

"Ahsoka!"

"It was to tell everyone you might be taking a few days off for your honeymoon, I was trying to do you a favor! Drunk Ahsoka loves doing favors!"

"Drunk Ahsoka had better never show her face anywhere near me ever again!"

Ahsoka beat a hasty retreat, and Anakin groaned and collapsed back on the bed. After several minutes of deafening silence, he ventured, "Well, it could be a lot worse."

"How the hell could this be any worse?" Padmé said in her patented Anakin-why-are-you-such-an-idiot voice.

"One of us could've accidentally married Ahsoka, and then we'd have a lot of explaining to do to Riyo when we got home."

He looked over just in time to see Padmé's lips twitch ever so slightly, as if she wanted to smile but was determined to stay furious. "I guess that's true," she said. "Okay, so we need to figure out a plan."

"I'm all ears."

"All right, yeah, I'll singlehandedly solve this giant mess you got us into, as usual."

"For the last time, it wasn't my fault—"

"Now that every single one of our friends, family members, and _coworkers_ seems to know," Padmé cut him off, "I'm rethinking our earlier plan to get the marriage annulled immediately."

"You are?" Anakin said in surprise.

"Yes. I mean, no one except for the handful of people who were actually there seems to know that we were wasted and it was an accident," she said. "How humiliating would it be to have to reply to every single one of those congratulations texts saying, 'sorry, misunderstanding, I got married by accident while drunk even though I'm a twenty-eight-year-old adult who should know better'?"

"That _would_ be pretty humiliating," Anakin agreed with a shudder. "No one would ever let us live it down."

"Exactly. So I'm thinking, why don't we pretend the marriage was completely sober and intentional? We could keep up the charade for, I don't know, five or six months and then we can quietly file for divorce and say things just didn't work out."

Anakin narrowed his eyes, considering it. The logical part of his brain was saying that pretending to be married—that is, actually being married and pretending it was on purpose to Padmé Naberrie for six months was an absurd idea that would somehow end in disaster, but on the other hand, he _really_ didn't relish the thought of making a fool of himself in front of the combined several hundred of his, Padmé's, and Ahsoka's Facebook friends. Or of being the laughingstock of the office for probably the rest of his life. Not to mention that looking his mother in the eye and admitting he was immature and irresponsible enough to get blackout drunk and marry someone by accident was a fairly horrifying prospect.

Plus, both of them were completely single and had been for quite some time now. They wouldn't be doing anyone any harm by keeping up the pretense for a little while. And it _would_ be awfully nice to have a wife to take as a date to Ahsoka's wedding instead of being the only person there to show up by himself, Anakin realized, perking up a little.

"Okay, say we stay married for a few months," he said. "We'd have to live together or else everyone would see through it right away."

Padmé wrinkled her nose. "I _guess_ you could move in with me," she said reluctantly. "I have a spare bedroom you could stay in. But you have to pay half the rent."

"That's not fair, you make way more money than me and your apartment's really fancy, I won't be able to afford it."

"I'm not letting you live in my apartment for six months and not pay rent."

"Worst wife ever," Anakin grumbled. "Fine, I'll pay half the rent. How much is it?"

"Three thousand a month, so you'll have to pay fifteen hundred."

"Fifteen hundred a _month?"_ he squawked. "That's twice as much as I'm paying right now!"

"Yeah, and your apartment's a dump and you have three roommates and I refuse to live there, which means you have to move in with me and pay half my rent," Padmé said, utterly unfazed.

"Can we split it, like, seventy-five twenty-five?"

"Sixty-five thirty-five," she said after a minute.

"Seventy-thirty."

"Ugh, fine. And once you move in we'll make a chore wheel to make sure you're not slacking on housekeeping."

"A chore wheel? What are you, a college freshman?"

"What I am is someone who's known you since _you_ were a college freshman and knows that you won't lift a finger to clean the house unless I make a system that forces you to do it."

Fair enough. "All right, so I'm moving in with you and your expensive rent and stupid chore wheel," Anakin said. "Then what?"

"We'll have to tell people some fake story about how we're super in love but for some reason never bothered to tell anyone until now," Padmé said, grabbing a pad of paper and a pen that the hotel had kindly provided on the desk.

"Are you _taking notes?_ This isn't _school."_

"How else am I supposed to keep track of all the details of the massive lie we're about to spin?"

"You can take the nerd out of college but you can't take college out of the nerd."

"Shut up. Love story. Go."

"Why do I have to think of the story?"

"You're the one who's watched a million rom-coms and read a million romance novels."

Anakin huffed. Then he remembered what Shmi had said on the phone message. "Oh, hold on, I have an idea," he said. "My mom…um, I don't know why, she's crazy, but she always teased me about, like, having a crush on you for some reason? Mostly when we were in college, not lately or anything, but, uh, she was mentioning that in the message she left me and I guess she thinks I never told her I was dating you because I was embarrassed or didn't want her to be all smug about it or something."

His face was on fire, and he could've sworn Padmé looked a little pink too. "You know…uh, my sister was actually saying something kinda similar on the message she left me," she mumbled. "Don't know why multiple people seem to think we should be together. Anyway, that excuse would probably work decently for why we never told our families. But what about other people?"

"Give me a minute." Anakin lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to craft the perfect believable love story in his mind. At last he sat back up, opening his eyes again. "Got it," he said. "Everyone knows we've always been close, so let's say that we only started a romantic relationship…oh, within the past year or so, but we didn't want to risk ruining our friendship if things didn't work out, so we didn't tell anyone we were dating except a few friends—we'll have to get everyone who was there last night on board with this whole story—because we thought that if we broke up, we could do it with less fuss and awkwardness if not a lot of people knew we'd been dating in the first place, and that way it'd be easier to go back to being friends."

"I guess that's okay," Padmé said, quickly scribbling things down. "Why did we decide to get married?"

"Well, on Facebook Ahsoka said it was spontaneous and romantic, so how about, we've been seeing how happy Ahsoka is to be getting married over the past few months and we spent the whole bachelorette party listening to her talk about how she couldn't wait to marry Riyo and spend the rest of her life with her, and we realized we felt exactly the same way about each other, so we decided to get married then and there."

"Hmm. It'll take some fine-tuning, but that's a good enough start," she replied. "Now we've got to nail down more about our dating history so that we give the same story to everyone who's going to interrogate us."

Anakin, who was beginning to enjoy himself, started spinning tales about everything he could think of: the moment each of them realized they had romantic feelings for the other, their first kiss, their first date, the first time they said I love you. "All right, that should do it for now," Padmé said at last, setting the pen aside. "Let's go find everyone else and tell them about the plan."

"Okay." Anakin paused, looking around the hotel room and realizing none of their belongings were in sight. "Did we leave our bags in our other rooms?"

Padmé glanced around too, then sighed. "I guess we must've. Dammit, I _need_ a change of clothes."

"That's okay, I'll just run back and grab them," Anakin said. He found several different room keys on the bedside table and picked them all up, hoping there was at least one each for this room, his old room, and Padmé's old room. He consulted the numbers written on them. "Was your room…306?"

"I think so."

"'Kay, I'll be back in a second."

Anakin headed off. All the couples in their friend group had gotten rooms by themselves, leaving Anakin to share with Ahsoka and Padmé with Dormé. Both rooms were mercifully empty—Anakin wasn't in the mood for more teasing right now—though he wasn't sure which of the suitcases in the second room was Padmé's. Neither had names written on the tags, so he texted Padmé to ask, but she failed to respond.

At last Anakin picked the suitcase he _thought_ he remembered Padmé carrying the previous morning, opened it, and started rifling through it for some sign that it was indeed hers, which he knew was wrong but it really wasn't his fault because he'd _tried_ asking her and she hadn't answered, so what choice did he have? The bad news was that Padmé and Dormé were both very fashionable and dressed similarly (to Anakin's eyes at least), so there was no way to tell just by a glance at the clothing inside.

The even worse news was that right on top was a black, lacy, _sexy_ bra, and Anakin fervently hoped he was mistaken and this was Dormé's suitcase after all because for some reason he really did _not_ want to picture Padmé wearing that. And oh look, there were some black lacy sexy panties to match. He rummaged further, hating everything.

"Aha!" he said under his breath when he found a shirt that he knew definitively was Padmé's because he distinctly remembered thinking the white fabric and flowing sleeves made her look like an angel when she wore it. Huh. That was troubling.

Anakin put it out of his mind and quickly zipped the suitcase back up, hoping Padmé wouldn't be able to tell he'd been snooping. He checked his phone again, but she still hadn't responded to his text. Upon arriving back at the honeymoon suite, he discovered why: she was in the shower.

He knocked on the door. "I have our bags," he called. "Want me to drop yours off in there?" Padmé said something muffled in response. "What?"

"No!" she hollered, much more clearly. "Don't come in, I'm in the shower!"

"Yeah, no shit. But isn't there a shower curtain?"

"No! Well, yes, there is, but just—don't come in!"

"Whatever," Anakin said, shaking his head and moving further into the room.

He changed his own clothes in record time lest Padmé come out of the bathroom while he was in the middle of getting dressed, but he'd clearly overestimated her, because it took another twenty minutes before she finally came out. Wearing nothing but a towel. Anakin stared at her in surprise, his throat feeling oddly dry.

She glanced over at him and flushed deeply, pulling the towel even tighter around her. "Stop staring at me!"

"I'm not," Anakin said, hastily averting his eyes to the ceiling and feeling his own face heat up.

She huffed in annoyance and grabbed her suitcase before dashing back into the privacy of the bathroom. It seemed like another age before she came out again—wearing the angel shirt, no less. Anakin sincerely hoped she wasn't also wearing the underwear he'd seen in the suitcase. "Finally," he grumbled. "I need to shower too, you know."

"But you're already dressed."

"Yeah, because I couldn't stand to be in those disgusting clothes for a second longer."

"Drama queen."

Anakin's shower was much speedier, and within fifteen minutes the two of them were heading down to the lobby to meet their friends. Their friends, who burst into cheers, applause, and wolf-whistles when they arrived.

"There's the happy couple!"

"How was the wedding night?"

"I hope you guys made good use of the honeymoon suite."

"Shut up," Anakin and Padmé said in unison while the others continued to snicker.

Obi-Wan, mercifully calm compared to everyone else but still grinning, said, "In all seriousness, though, I'm guessing the first item on the agenda for this morning is to get the marriage annulled? That's what Ahsoka said."

Padmé looked at Anakin, who shrugged, then turned back to the rest of the group. "Actually, there's been a slight change of plan," she said. "We're going to stay married for a little while."

They all gaped at them. Anakin had to admit it suddenly sounded much more absurd than it had back in the hotel room with just the two of them. "What?" said Bail.

"Thanks to Ahsoka, everybody we know knows that we got married and they all think it was on purpose," Padmé said, shooting a glare at Ahsoka, who tried to look innocent. "So Anakin and I decided that to save face, we'll go along with it and pretend it _was_ on purpose, then get a quick divorce in six months and say things weren't working out."

More stares. "Let me get this straight," Satine said. "You're going to remain _legally married_ to each other for six months, just so that people won't make fun of you?"

Now it really sounded stupid. "Yes," Anakin declared while Padmé nodded resolutely.

There was another beat of silence before everyone burst out laughing again. Anakin scowled and Padmé crossed her arms, looking annoyed. "Convenient excuse," Breha said, exchanging a knowing look with Bail. "Very convenient."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." They exchanged another knowing look, to Anakin's consternation.

"Look, it's not a big deal," Padmé said impatiently. "Anakin's going to live in my spare bedroom for a little while and maybe we'll have to do a bit of acting around some people, but otherwise nothing's going to change."

"Except for the fact that you're legally married," Rabé observed.

"You all, mostly Ahsoka, got us into this mess, so the least you can do is just play along with us," Anakin said grouchily.

" _We_ got you into this mess? _You_ got you into this mess," said Dormé, looking thoroughly entertained.

"Have you guys eaten breakfast yet?" Padmé interrupted.

"No, we were waiting for you." Sabé smirked. "Though if it had taken much longer we would've assumed you two were otherwise engaged and left without you."

Another round of snickers as Padmé said with as much dignity as she could muster, "Well, I'm sure we're all hungry, so let's go eat."

They trooped off to the hotel's breakfast room, and once everyone had come back from the buffet and started digging in, Padmé pulled out the pad of paper with notes on her and Anakin's epic love story. "Okay, here's the story we came up with," she said. "I'm going to read it aloud and you're all going to memorize it in case anyone asks you questions once we get home."

"You mean we have to get involved in this lie too?" Rabé demanded.

"Yes," Padmé said with such a stern look that no one dared protest further. She proceeded to read out her notes, Anakin chiming in occasionally to add more details, and when they'd finished everyone's expressions were ranging from highly exasperated to highly amused.

"This is _ridiculous,"_ Obi-Wan announced. "Would it really be so terrible to just tell everyone there was a misunderstanding, or God forbid, admit you made a mistake?"

"You've never admitted a mistake in your life, hypocrite," Anakin muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"It's really not a complicated or hard-to-remember story," Padmé said. "And it's only for a few months. And the best part is, since we're saying that we didn't tell many people we were dating, most of you can say you never had any idea until last night."

"Except a couple of you should probably have known for the past year, it would be weird if we dated for a whole _year_ and didn't tell _anyone,"_ Anakin said thoughtfully.

"Good point," Padmé said. "Who wants to have known we were dating?"

"Not me," Obi-Wan said at once. "The less I'm part of this, the better."

"Ahsoka's Facebook post kinda makes it seem like she would've known, so let's say she knew," said Anakin.

"Cool," Ahsoka said, looking pleased. "I'm glad you trusted me with the secret in this alternate reality."

"Don't mention it."

"Padmé, as your coworker and dear friend, I would like to have been trusted with the secret as well," Bail said solemnly, though he was clearly fighting hard not to smile.

"Fine," said Padmé.

"Same for me as your best friend since kindergarten," Sabé chimed in.

"Okay. Anyone else?"

"Well, Bail never keeps things from me, so I'm sure he would've cracked and told me at some point," Breha said, looking like she was enjoying herself immensely. "So I knew unofficially, but you never actually _told_ me."

Padmé was scribbling frantically. "Okay, so we've got Ahsoka, Bail, and Sabé officially knowing, and Breha unofficially knowing. Is that okay with everyone?"

"Sure."

"Sounds good."

"This is ridiculous."

"Now that that's all sorted out, can we please not talk about this again for the rest of the trip?" Anakin said hopefully.

"Sure," said Ahsoka. "But since you got the honeymoon suite for last night only, I'm switching rooms with Padmé so you two can have some alone time tonight too." She and Dormé high-fived, and Anakin and Padmé sighed loudly. It was going to be a long weekend.


	2. Chapter 2

"So what's the game plan for once we land?" Anakin asked. He'd ended up sitting next to Padmé on the plane after Dormé had insisted she couldn't possibly split up a husband and wife less than forty-eight hours after their wedding and forced him to switch seats with her.

"I guess step one is get you moved into my apartment," Padmé said. "Shouldn't take long, you don't own anything other than, like, five shirts and three pairs of jeans."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"Yeah, your emergency sirens alarm clock blasting right in my ear wasn't the best start to the day."

"I need a really loud alarm or else I'll just go right back to sleep."

"You could've _warned_ me last night before we went to bed. I thought the hotel was on fire or something."

Anakin grinned. "That was pretty hilarious."

Padmé huffed and put her headphones back in. Anakin sat quietly for another sixty seconds before poking her again, and she sighed and took one headphone out. "What now?"

"What do we do after I move in?"

"Uh, I don't know, how about get on with our lives like nothing happened?"

"What about our families?"

"What about them?"

"I'm sure they'll want to have dinner with us or something. Soon."

"I'm sure they will. We'll deal with it when it happens." She put her headphone back in, signaling the end of the conversation.

"Okay," Anakin said meekly.

Sixty seconds later: poke, sigh, headphone out, "What _now?"_

"Are you sure we're not majorly fucking up right now?"

"We've already called our parents and told them the story we made up, so it's a little too late to back out," Padmé said, which wasn't exactly encouraging. "Can you please watch a movie or something and leave me alone?"

"I forgot to bring headphones. Can't we just talk for the whole flight? It's only five hours."

"No."

Anakin resigned himself to staring at the back of the seat in front of him for the next five hours.

But at last they landed back home in Boston, and it wasn't long before Anakin was back at his apartment. He started packing up his things, and the fact that he managed to fit everything in just two bags forced him to admit Padmé was right about his lack of possessions. Plus, her apartment was fully furnished already so all he had to take with him was his clothes and personal belongings, no furniture or anything big and bulky.

Anakin had called his baffled roommates the day before to explain the (false version of the) situation and inform them they'd need to find a new roommate to replace him, and he bid them goodbye and headed back outside with the backpack and duffel bag containing all his earthly possessions. Annoyed as he was about Padmé's higher rent, he couldn't deny he felt a lot more like a real adult now, sharing an apartment with his (accidental) wife instead of a bunch of random guys he'd met via a Craigslist ad for a fourth roommate.

"You're here already," Padmé noted rather disapprovingly when she opened the door of her apartment to let him in.

"Didn't take long to pack my five shirts and three pairs of jeans," Anakin retorted, making a beeline for the spare room to drop his stuff off. He knew Padmé's apartment like the back of his hand.

"You can paint the room or decorate however you want, within reason," she said, following him. "As long as it's easily reversible and you pay for it yourself."

"It's fine like this." Padmé was a far better interior decorator than Anakin could ever hope to be, and the room was already done out in soothing grays and whites and blues. Much more tranquil and tasteful than his cramped, messy bedroom in his old apartment.

Padmé left him to settle in, and he got to work putting his clothes in the dresser and setting up his toothbrush and toiletries in the bathroom. The shower shelves were all stuffed full of a bajillion different hair products and soaps, but after a bit of rearranging Anakin managed to squeeze his meager one bottle of shampoo in there. And then got yelled at by Padmé for putting all her stuff in the wrong place and messing up her organizational system. Ah, domestic bliss.

"What are we doing tomorrow?" Anakin asked that evening over takeout pizza.

"Uh, going to work."

"But it's two days after our wedding! We should be on our honeymoon."

Padmé gave him an exasperated look. "If you want to just stay home and fuck around and waste a vacation day go right ahead, but I have a lot to do this week and I'm not skipping work for a fake honeymoon for a fake wedding."

"Fake honeymoon, _real_ wedding."

"Real only in a legal sense."

"So pretty real, then." Anakin took another bite of pizza. "Well, if you don't want to take a honeymoon this week, we should do one in six months to celebrate our divorce," he said with his mouth full, earning him a disdainful look from Padmé.

She scoffed. "What, get back from a supposedly romantic week away together and announce to everyone we're getting a divorce? That'll totally seem logical."

"Okay, then maybe in _three_ months to celebrate making it to the halfway point without killing each other. We can go somewhere relaxing and just chill out for a week, and we can even get separate hotel rooms so we can have a little break from each other."

"Huh," she said. "That's actually not a bad idea."

"Right? I'm sure we'll need a vacation by then."

"I already do," Padmé muttered.

Anakin woke up at seven the next morning and hurriedly silenced his alarm so as not to annoy Padmé, whose bedroom was on the other side of his wall. After several minutes he forced himself to get out of bed and shuffled out of his room towards the bathroom, unconsciously glancing towards Padmé's room to see if she was up yet.

Unfortunately, she _was_ up—and her bedroom door was wide open, giving Anakin a full view of her rummaging through her closet completely naked, though thankfully her back was to him so he didn't _really_ see anything, but it was still the most traumatizing split second of his life. "Whoa!" he yelped, trying to cover his eyes with his hands so fast he basically slapped himself in the face.

He heard a shriek and a thump that sounded like Padmé had just thrown herself to the floor. "Anakin! What the hell?!"

"What the hell yourself! Why would you leave the door open while you're getting dressed?"

"I just came back from the shower and I forgot you were here!"

" _How?"_

"I'm used to living here by myself and it's the crack of dawn and I'm half-asleep!" Finally he heard footsteps followed by her door slamming shut. "Get out!"

"I'm not even in!" he yelled back, tentatively uncovering his eyes and stomping into the bathroom when he saw the coast was clear. He ended up washing his face much more thoroughly than usual, as if he could physically scrub the image from his eyes. No such luck. Padmé's ass was definitely going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Anakin considered hiding in the bathroom until he heard Padmé leave for work, but that would make _him_ late for work and the prospect of getting yelled at by Mace Windu was even more frightening than the prospect of running into Padmé again after accidentally seeing her naked, so he went back into his room to get dressed before heading into the kitchen.

She was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal and they studiously avoided each other's eyes, though even so they both turned bright red. Anakin poured himself a bowl of cereal and nervously sat down in the chair across from her. After several intensely awkward minutes of silence, he could take it no more. "I didn't _see_ anything," he mumbled into his cereal.

Padmé snorted. "Liar."

"Okay, fine, I saw your butt," Anakin admitted. "But that's it. And that's not a big deal, I mean, I've seen butts before—not that I _haven't_ seen, uh, other things before too, I just meant that, you know, butts all look the same and—and everyone has a butt, so it's not like—"

"Say butt one more time and I'll kill you."

"Okay." He paused, then smiled a little. "You know, seeing as I'm your husband and all, it's actually kind of—"

Padmé finally looked up from her cereal to shoot him a glare so foul he didn't dare say another word all morning.

When Anakin walked into the office at nine o'clock, he was greeted with applause and congratulatory exclamations. Startled, he stared at them all for a second before remembering that Ahsoka had generously emailed everyone telling them he'd gotten married over the weekend, so he hastily put on a smile and began thanking them.

"Why are you even here?" Quinlan Vos asked. "Shouldn't you be getting laid on a beach somewhere?"

Everyone snickered and Anakin felt himself blushing as he tried his best to keep "getting laid" and "Padmé" as two very separate thoughts in his mind. "Well, you know, the wedding was pretty spontaneous so we didn't have a honeymoon planned," he said. If only they knew _how_ spontaneous. "And things are busy for us right now, we're probably going to wait a few months until we have more time for a honeymoon."

"Very practical," Luminara Unduli said appreciatively.

"Why didn't you ever mention you've been dating someone?" Barriss Offee said. "Usually you won't shut up about your love life. Or maybe you did mention it and I've just learned to tune your love life out at this point."

That set off another wave of snickers and Anakin huffed indignantly. "Um, the two of us have been very close friends for a long time before we fell in love," he began, praying he'd get all the details from the pre-prepared story correct. "We didn't want to make a whole big thing out of it when we first started dating 'cause we were worried that'd make it harder to go back to being friends if things didn't work out. So we decided to keep everything kind of private instead of blabbing to all our coworkers about it."

"Uh-huh," Ahsoka chimed in, finally coming to back him up. "That's exactly what he said when he first told me they were together and asked me not to tell anyone."

"So you've known this whole time?"

"Sure have."

"What about you, Obi-Wan?" Everyone knew how close the three of them were.

"Uh…yes, I knew too," Obi-Wan said. Anakin gave him an annoyed look when no one else was looking.

"That wasn't what we agreed on," he hissed later while they were in the kitchenette together to get a cup of coffee. "You said you didn't want to have known beforehand."

"I know, but then once everyone was talking about it I realized how odd it would seem for you to have told Ahsoka and not me when we're the—the three musketeers of the office," Obi-Wan whispered back. "Can't you just make a quick change on that absurd cheat sheet of yours?"

"Fine, I'll text Padmé." Then Anakin smiled. "You really consider us the three musketeers?"

"Don't tell Ahsoka I said that," replied Obi-Wan, so of course Anakin had to track her down immediately to report the conversation.

He did end up fielding questions about the marriage just about all day, but thanks to all the preparation he'd done with Padmé, none of them gave him any trouble. Anakin was starting to have quite a bit of fun with the whole situation and he came home from work in a good mood.

One not shared by Padmé, apparently. "How was your day?" he asked when she returned soon after he did. "Mine was pretty good, all my coworkers were—"

"My coworkers would _not_ shut up about the wedding," she said crossly, kicking her shoes off and setting her purse down on the coffee table. "Like, honestly, you'd think no one in the office had ever gotten married before."

"Well, I'm sure none of them unexpectedly eloped in Vegas with a boyfriend they'd never once mentioned," Anakin said reasonably.

"And then Palpatine—" Padmé's boss whom she hated "—was asking me if I was changing my name to Skywalker and wanted to file paperwork," she fumed. "It was _so_ condescending. Why the hell would I change my whole identity just because I'm married? Why is my husband's name more important than mine?"

"Maybe he was just double-checking to be polite," Anakin suggested.

"Oh, trust me, Palpatine only ever does things to be manipulative or judgmental or make you feel insecure. He never does anything to be _polite."_

"Oh. Uh, aside from all that how was your day?"

"My parents want to meet us for dinner," Padmé said.

"Oh," Anakin said, feeling nervous. "Okay. When?"

"Tonight."

"Tonight?"

"One hour from now, in fact."

" _What?_ Do you think maybe you could've opened with that when you first came in?"

"Whatever, it's not a big deal. But you'd better change into something more presentable."

Anakin glanced down at himself self-consciously. "What's wrong with my work clothes?"

"My parents are sitting down for dinner with their new son-in-law, not buying insurance."

"So what do you want, nicer than this or more casual than this? You're giving me mixed signals here."

"You know what? Let me just pick something out for you."

Anakin stood around complaining while Padmé went through every article of clothing he had before settling on dress pants, a button-down shirt, and a jacket. So basically work clothes except no tie. Padmé and her parents had agreed on a somewhat fancy restaurant, so she changed into a knee-length navy blue dress which Anakin couldn't help but think was quite flattering.

"Okay. Remember everything we've talked about," Padmé said on the subway over to the restaurant, which was also in the city. "I've already given them the whole story, but I'm sure they'll want to go over it again in person with both of us and ask a million questions. So just make sure not to slip up or say anything that contradicts something I've told them."

"Yeah, sure. No problem." Anakin felt queasy.

His queasiness only increased as they walked into the restaurant and saw Ruwee and Jobal Naberrie waiting for them. The two of them and Padmé all started hugging each other and exclaiming while Anakin tried not to faint. Padmé's parents were pretty easygoing and had always liked him, but he'd be a fool to think they weren't at least a _little_ mad at him for convincing Padmé to elope in Vegas without them instead of having a proper wedding ceremony.

Unless the story was that Padmé had done the convincing? No, Anakin was pretty sure they'd decided it was him who'd done the convincing because nobody would believe that Padmé would come up with such a crazy, impulsive idea. Though in Anakin's opinion, she was a lot more prone to craziness and impulsiveness than most people thought she was. After all, it had been _her_ idea to stay married for six months and _he'd_ just gone along with it. Which he was now sorely regretting.

"Anakin!" Jobal said, startling him out of his anxiety for a second. She came over to give him a hug, and Ruwee shook his hand, and they were both looking reasonably cheerful so Anakin prayed he wasn't about to get yelled at. Or maybe they were just waiting until they were sitting down and had more privacy for yelling.

"So, congratulations!" Jobal exclaimed after they were seated in a booth.

"Thanks," Anakin said while Padmé looked over at him with her best adoring smile, which he tried to return though he thought his probably came out looking more nervous than anything.

"I must say it was a surprise, but we _did_ always think you two would be good together," Ruwee said.

"Oh, Dad, honestly," Padmé said, turning pink.

"My mom's been telling me that for years too," Anakin blurted out. "I guess the two of us were the last ones to figure it out."

As Ruwee and Jobal laughed, he impulsively slid his arm around Padmé's waist and pulled her a little closer. She gave him a startled look but quickly covered it up with another smile. Anakin didn't know why his hands were sweating so much all of a sudden.

"Padmé told us you've been together about a year, is that right?" Jobal was saying.

"Yes," Anakin said. "I'm really sorry we never told you, it's just that—"

"Oh, no, it's not your fault. Padmé's very secretive about her personal life, hardly ever tells us anything," Ruwee said; Jobal chuckled in agreement and Padmé scowled. "I'm sure she was the one who wanted to keep quiet about it."

If Anakin was chivalrous, he would immediately insist that no, it had been entirely his idea. "That's right. All her," he said feebly, and now Padmé was directing her glare at him though fortunately the Naberries were still laughing and didn't seem to notice.

"I will say, though, Anakin, I'm not thrilled that I wasn't present at my daughter's wedding," Jobal said next, looking stern and making Anakin's palms sweat even more.

Ruwee nodded. "Definitely. Of course we're so happy for you both, but…"

"I know," Anakin said. Why was it _his_ responsibility to placate Padmé's parents while she sat there with her mouth clamped shut? Some wife. "We're really, really sorry about that, we were both so disappointed that our families weren't there but…um, the moment was just—it was so perfect and we just couldn't wait. Padmé tried to be logical and talk me into waiting at least until we got home, but I think we both felt how _right_ it was, so…we went for it."

"Young love," Jobal said with a small smile. "You know, Ruwee and I eloped too, actually."

"What?" Padmé said, looking astonished.

Her mother, whom Anakin had always thought of as a very dignified middle-aged woman, let out a _giggle_ and leaned against Ruwee, who was also grinning in a startlingly mischievous way. "We were in the middle of planning this whole big wedding, and it was so much stress and it was making us dread our wedding day instead of being excited, and it just didn't feel right," he began. "Then one day I tossed aside the guest list we were working on and said, 'You know what? Let's just get married right now.' So we called up a couple friends to be witnesses and went right down to the courthouse."

"Our parents were furious when we told them," Jobal continued, still smiling at the memory. "We ended up having a big party anyway to calm them down about having missed the actual wedding, but still, they were _not_ pleased. So as disappointed as we are to have missed yours, Padmé, we definitely understand where you two were coming from, and we're not _really_ upset with you. Especially if you do have some sort of bigger celebration later with lots of guests to make up for it."

"Oh, well, maybe, yeah, we might do that," Padmé said, clearly stunned by this unexpected coincidence. Anakin was mentally wiping sweat from his forehead in relief; they'd really dodged a bullet there.

"Now, am I to understand that you weren't even engaged or anything?" Ruwee said. "Because at least _we_ were when we eloped."

"No, we weren't engaged," Padmé admitted, reaching for her wineglass to take a sip. "We kind of skipped that step, I guess."

Jobal looked at her hand and gasped. "You don't even have a ring? Either of you?"

Anakin moved his own left hand out from under the table to show that he also didn't have a ring (they'd long since disposed of the plastic ones from Vegas). "Yeah, you know, it was all so spur of the moment," he said. "Didn't have time to get any."

"I hope you intend to," Ruwee said, stern again.

"Oh, definitely," Anakin said quickly. "We're going ring shopping as soon as we have the time." Great. Was he going to have to shell out a ton of money for wedding rings all for the sake of keeping up a stupid pretense?

"Maybe we don't want rings, Dad," Padmé said, to his relief. "What's the point anyway? Seems like a waste of money."

"It's a wonderful symbol of your love for each other," said Jobal, touching her own ring.

"Well—well Anakin and I don't need a physical and _expensive_ symbol of our love, our love is strong enough without that," Padmé improvised.

"I'm sure it is, but still, it's nice to have a ring," Ruwee said. He glanced between the two of them. "If money's an issue, we would be more than happy to—"

"No, no," Anakin interrupted, stung by the implied slight to his livelihood because he was positive everyone present knew _Padmé_ had no money issues whatsoever. "Um, it's very generous of you to offer, but it's really not a problem at all. As you can see, we're still in the middle of discussing whether or not rings are important to us as a couple, that's all."

"Exactly," Padmé said. "It's a very personal decision that doesn't involve anyone but me and Anakin, all right?"

"All right, all right," Jobal said, holding up her hands in defeat. "I suppose Dad and I are old-fashioned and you young people do things differently nowadays."

"Uh-huh."

The rest of dinner passed without any problems. Anakin was still puzzled about why Ruwee and Jobal (and his own mother, and basically everyone else who knew him and Padmé) were so unsurprised by the thought of them secretly being in love with each other. What was wrong with everybody? Were he and Padmé the only people who realized how absurd the idea was?

"That went surprisingly well," Anakin remarked once they were back at the apartment.

"I know. They didn't really seem upset on the phone, but still, I thought they'd yell at us at least a _little,"_ Padmé said. "And I can't believe they eloped too, I've never heard a thing about that part of the story. They have wedding photos hanging up all over the house…I guess those must be from the later party they mentioned."

"Yeah, that was a crazy coincidence," he agreed. "I can understand why they wouldn't have mentioned it to you, though. I mean, would _we_ tell _our_ true wedding story to our kids?"

Padmé gave him such an irritated look that he wisely retreated into his bedroom for the rest of the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**This is The Steamy Chapter that's responsible for the rating of this fic ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) but even so it's not very explicit, so don't get your hopes up :P**

* * *

The next few weeks passed relatively uneventfully. Anakin's coworkers had wedding-ed themselves out by the end of the first week, so he didn't get interrogated too much more after that and Padmé reported the same thing at her office. And most of their other friends and family had had all their questions answered already too, so they were mostly left alone. Anakin was thinking that this whole six-month-marriage thing was going to be a lot easier than he'd feared.

He should've known he was being lulled into a false sense of security.

One Sunday morning, Anakin volunteered to go grocery shopping (or rather, the chore wheel volunteered him). Padmé was still asleep, so he left a note saying he'd be back in an hour or two and tried to leave the apartment quietly. But when he got to the grocery store, a small family-run local business, he saw in dismay that it was closed because the owners were away for the weekend. He bit his lip and checked the grocery list. He could go find a different grocery store, but this one was the only one nearby that had the specific kind of milk that Padmé liked. No, Anakin decided, it would be best to go home empty-handed and come back tomorrow; they didn't need groceries too desperately anyway.

So he went back to the apartment, and since he hadn't been gone very long, he figured Padmé might still be asleep and therefore let himself in as quietly as possible.

That's when he heard it. It sounded like…Anakin furrowed his brow, breaking out in a sweat and feeling his heartbeat speed up. And then he heard it again, and yes, it was definitely… _moaning,_ coming from behind Padmé's firmly closed door.

Putting two and two together, Anakin immediately bolted out of the apartment as quickly and quietly as he'd arrived, cursing himself for not making a deafening racket on his way in to alert her of his return. That's what he got for trying to be a respectful roommate and not wake her up.

Why the hell would she be doing _that_ when he'd only stepped out for a minute to get groceries and could return at any moment? Anakin wondered angrily. Then he remembered the note, on which he'd definitively written he wouldn't be back until eleven or so, and it was now only ten. She had no idea he'd be returning so much earlier than stated. Why oh why did the grocery store have to be closed?

Anakin dithered in the hallway for a moment. Their grocery store was closed. It would be awfully suspicious if he was gone for another hour, then came back without groceries. Padmé would wonder what he'd been doing in all that time. Maybe she would figure out that he must've come home earlier, realized what she was up to, and left again. Same thing if he tried going in again now while deliberately being as loud as possible to announce his arrival. The last thing Anakin wanted was for her to know that he knew, that would be horrendously mortifying for both of them. Not that _he_ could be any more mortified than he already was.

The other option was to just go to a different grocery store and annoy Padmé by getting the wrong milk. Five minutes ago that had seemed like the worst option, but now it was looking pretty damn good in comparison. So, stuck between a rock and a hard place, Anakin chose the rock and decided to anger Padmé in regards to something innocent like milk, and he headed back out.

Anakin walked through the other, less good grocery store in a daze. The harder he tried to forget about the incident, the more he dwelled on it. First he tried to calm himself down by reasoning that she could've been having sex, there could easily have been another person in there whom he hadn't heard in the point-zero-five seconds he was standing there. But Padmé had been completely single during Vegas, and surely Anakin would've known if she'd started seeing someone in the meantime given that they were practically living on top of each other. Not to mention it would be awfully risky of her to sleep with someone else when just about everyone she knew, minus Anakin and a few friends, thought their marriage was legitimate and would therefore assume she was cheating on Anakin if they heard about it.

No, it was much more likely that she had indeed been alone this morning, which Anakin for some reason found even more distressing. He tried to rationalize it, knowing he was overreacting. So he now knew that Padmé—did that (his brain wouldn't even let him _think_ the actual word in relation to her). But so what? Everyone did it. _He_ did it. Why did it bother him to know that she did too?

Then he thought back to the sexy underwear he'd seen in her suitcase in Vegas, which made everything even worse. Yes, Anakin had known she'd dated and presumably slept with people during the ten years they'd known each other, but somehow he'd just never thought of Padmé as a sexual being before. And now the evidence to the contrary was unsettling him. She was his _friend,_ he'd never once had cause to think of her in this way.

Anakin forced himself to take several deep breaths, trying not to have a panic attack in the middle of the cereal aisle. He just needed to put the incident out of his mind, and within a few days he'd forget all about it. Right?

He took his sweet time at the store and didn't come back until half past eleven, just to be safe. Padmé was sitting calmly on the couch reading a book as if she'd been doing nothing but that all morning. Anakin felt himself turn a violent shade of red the second he saw her.

"Hey," she said, not looking up from her book.

"Hi," Anakin squeaked.

"Did you get everything?"

"Um," he began, then proceeded to blurt out a very rapid run-on sentence. "Our store was closed so I had to go to a different one and they didn't have the right milk so I had to get a different kind I hope you don't mind I know you only use it in cereal anyway right so hopefully it won't be that big of a deal but if you really want I can go back to our store tomorrow or something to get the right milk and I'll drink the bad kind all myself."

Padmé stared at him. "Uh…okay," she said. "Whatever. It's just milk."

"Right," Anakin said. "Um, d-do you want me to put things away? I just thought, you know where everything goes, so—"

"Yeah, that's fine, you can just leave the bags on the table and I'll put it away."

"Okay." Anakin dropped off the bags and all but ran into the safety of his own room.

He tried watching some TV on his laptop, but it wasn't distracting enough and his mind kept drifting back to a place he really didn't want it to go. At last he texted Ahsoka asking if he could come over and was relieved when she said yes. And doubly relieved when Padmé just told him to have fun rather than asking if she could come with him. But then he started thinking about what she might do with the apartment to herself while he was out, and on second thoughts maybe he should've invited her after all.

"How's last-minute wedding planning coming along?" Anakin asked when he got there; scheduling difficulties had made it necessary for the Vegas bachelorette weekend to be two months before the actual wedding, so they still had several weeks to go.

"At this point, I've decided that as long as the two of us, an officiant, and a marriage license show up to the venue, I don't even care what else happens," Ahsoka said, flopping down onto the couch. "Riyo's in bridezilla mode, though, she's off at another dress fitting now."

Anakin laughed. "I can't picture bridezilla Riyo." She was one of the mildest-mannered people he'd ever met.

"Consider yourself lucky," Ahsoka said, though she seemed more amused than anything.

They chatted for a while before Anakin said casually, "You and Riyo were friends first, right? Before you got together."

"Uh-huh."

"So how did you know that you had romantic feelings for her? What made you realize that something had changed?"

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Anakin said, much too quickly. "With the wedding coming up, I've been thinking back to the early days of your relationship and I was just curious."

"Uh-huh," Ahsoka said again, much more skeptically this time. "Let's see…it wasn't anything specific for me, really. I just kind of gradually realized it, until one day I was looking at her and thinking about how beautiful she was, and then I knew my feelings had changed. There wasn't a big aha moment like in the movies, you know, where the other person does something quirky and suddenly the lightbulb goes off. It just snuck up on me over time."

"Oh," said Anakin.

"Are you, by any chance, experiencing something similar with a formerly platonic friend?"

Anakin did his best to scoff. "Of course not. You'd be the first to hear about it if I was. I told you, I was just curious."

He could've sworn Ahsoka was suppressing a smirk, but thankfully she didn't pester him any further.

The next weekend, just when Anakin could finally look Padmé in the eye again without wanting to die, everything got worse. On Saturday afternoon, someone buzzed up to the apartment. "I'll get it," Anakin called, going over to answer. "Hello?"

"Ani! It's Mom," Shmi's voice came crackling through.

"Mom?" he said in confusion. "You didn't tell me you were coming. Did you?"

"Yes, remember? We'd planned for me to come visit you this week," she reminded him. "But it was last month, and with the wedding and everything I'm not surprised you forgot about it. I'm sorry, I should've reminded you I was coming, especially since the original visit was planned for your old apartment."

"Oh. Yeah, I remember now." Shit. Anakin _had_ completely forgotten about that. "Um, that's all right, I'm glad you're here," he said, trying to hide how aghast he was. "Come on up."

"Are you sure it's not an inconvenience? If you weren't expecting me—"

"No, no, not an inconvenience at all," Anakin lied. "We'd love for you to stay here. With us. For a whole week."

He yelled for Padmé, who was in her room, to come over and he explained the situation as fast as he could before Shmi made it up to the apartment. "Your mom's staying with us for a _week?"_ she demanded. "And you were all stressed because my parents wanted to have _dinner."_

"Well, your parents live nearby so they see you all the time, whenever my mom comes up here she has to stay for a while to make the trip worth it," Anakin said defensively; Shmi lived down in Florida with Anakin's stepfather Cliegg.

"What are we going to do? Living with us for a week, she'll see right away that the marriage is a sham!"

"Okay, we'll just—I'll have to sleep in your room for the week," Anakin realized, dread settling in his stomach. "Whatever, no big deal, I'll sleep on the floor."

Before Padmé could protest, Shmi was knocking on the door. Padmé put on an impressively convincing smile as she opened it. "Hi! Welcome," she said, giving Shmi a hug and then standing aside to let her in. "It's so nice to see you."

"I'm so sorry for not checking with you ahead of time, I thought Ani would've remembered I was coming," Shmi said, looking anxious.

"Yes, you'd think he would remember," Padmé agreed pleasantly, though Anakin was pretty sure he heard _danger! death!_ implied in her tone.

"I could easily find a hotel if—"

"Nonsense," Padmé said graciously. "Boston hotels are much too expensive, and we have a spare bedroom for you right here. It would just be silly for you not to stay with us." Anakin was pleasantly surprised that even in her undoubtable annoyance, she was kind enough to take his mother's limited finances into account.

"That's very nice of you, thank you," Shmi said. "I hope I'm not intruding on you during your newlywed phase."

"Not at all," Anakin assured her. "It's been a month since the wedding."

"And really, we're saving our newlywed phase for our honeymoon in a couple more months," Padmé added. "For now it's just business as usual with us. Come on, let me show you to your room."

Anakin followed them into what had been his room until five minutes ago. And which, he realized in horror, still had all his belongings strewn all over the place. "Sorry about the mess," he said, thinking fast. "Um, I've been sleeping in here for a couple nights because…Padmé was sick and she worried about me catching it, so she insisted that I sleep in another room. She's just so thoughtful."

Right on cue, Padmé grabbed a tissue and blew her nose loudly. "I'd hate to see you get sick, darling, I know how much of a baby you are when you have even the littlest cold," she said sweetly. "But luckily I'm almost completely better again."

"That's great news," said Anakin. "I've just hated not sleeping in our bed in the other room with you, where I've slept every other night except for the last few. I can't fall asleep without you snoring in my ear."

Shmi was smiling at them with alarming fondness.

Anakin quickly cleared his things out of the room and excused away his clothes in the dresser by saying that Padmé's clothes took up absolutely every bit of storage space in the master bedroom (which, he discovered a few minutes later, was actually true). They spent the rest of the day in the apartment chatting with Shmi, and then they took her out to dinner downtown.

Their conversations with her followed the one with Padmé's parents pretty much to a T, even down to Shmi also being disappointed they didn't have wedding rings. But once again, she hardly questioned the logicality of Anakin and Padmé even being in a relationship in the first place, which Anakin found very troubling. The fact that so _many_ of their friends and family seemed to think it made perfect sense, them being together…

Anakin gave his head a shake. He wouldn't even entertain the thought, it was so absurd. Clearly, everyone around them had lost their minds and he and Padmé were the only sane ones.

"You'll just have to sleep in the bed with me," Padmé was saying, very sanely, that night after Shmi had gone to bed. "If your mom comes in and sees you sleeping on the floor—"

"Why the hell would my mom barge into her newlywed son and his wife's bedroom without knocking?"

"You never know," Padmé insisted. "We already had a close enough call with your BS about having to sleep in the other room because I was sick."

Anakin had to admit that was true. "Fine," he grumbled. "If you're so desperate to get me into bed with you—"

Padmé just gave him a disparaging look and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Anakin stayed up way later than usual watching TV, but finally, he acknowledged he'd have to bite the bullet and get into bed with Padmé. _It's only for a week,_ he told himself as he tiptoed into her bedroom. _Seven nights. No big deal._

She was already sound asleep, which Anakin hoped would make him feel less awkward. He changed into pajama pants, kept his T-shirt on (which he would never do normally unless he was freezing), and gingerly climbed into bed beside her. This wasn't so bad. It was a big bed, and Padmé was way on the other side. They probably wouldn't even touch all night.

Anakin felt himself relaxing, so of course it was just then that Padmé rolled over in her sleep to face him. He glanced over at her and froze as he saw that her nightgown was _very_ low-cut. Why would she wear that to bed, knowing that Anakin was sleeping in here tonight? Unless she was _trying_ to seduce him. Or maybe it didn't even occur to her, or she assumed that he wouldn't notice or care.

And until recently, Anakin realized, he wouldn't have. When had that changed? What was _happening_ to him?

He tossed and turned for another hour before finally managing to drift off. The next morning, he was rudely awoken by a pillow hitting him in the face. "Ow!" he said, waking up with a start. The pillow whacked him again. "What the hell?"

He looked up and saw Padmé sitting up in bed next to him, looking pissed off. "What," she said, pointing, "is _that?"_

Anakin glanced down, immediately turned bright red, and grabbed the pillow from her to cover himself up. "It's morning," he protested, positive you could fry an egg on his face. "That happens sometimes. It's not my fault."

"Well, get rid of it, it's disgusting. Waking up and—and feeling that _right_ against my _leg—_ "

"I told you, it's not my fault!"

They were arguing in whispers so Shmi wouldn't overhear, though no less heatedly for all their quietness. "I don't care whose fault it is!" Padmé hissed. "Just do something about it!"

"Really? Right here? Right now?"

"I _meant,_ go take a cold shower or something," she said, face flaming. "You're gross."

"Well, at least I'm quiet when I do it," Anakin snapped without thinking.

Padmé froze. "Excuse me?"

 _Oh shit._ Anakin swallowed, moving from irritated to terrified remarkably quickly. "N-nothing," he stammered.

"No, tell me," Padmé said dangerously. "What did you mean by 'at least I'm quiet when I do it'?"

"Um…" Anakin glanced around the room, as if a third person who might help him would suddenly materialize. No such luck. "Well, last weekend when I went to the grocery store…I…came back here around ten when I saw the store was closed…and then I quickly left again to go to the other store."

Padmé's face went very pale, then very red. She yanked the pillow back out of his hands and hit him with it several more times. "I hate you so much!" she said in an angry whisper, each word punctuated with a pillow whack. "Invading my apartment, intruding on my privacy—"

"Believe me, I would've been _very_ happy not to have intruded!"

"I wish I'd drunkenly married anyone else in the entire world except you!"

"Right back at you!"

"God!" Padmé gave him one last wallop before hurling the pillow on the floor. "I _hate_ you!"

They glared at each other for a second, flushed and breathless, Anakin's hair falling in his face and one strap of Padmé's nightgown sliding off her shoulder, and then suddenly they were lunging towards each other at the same time and their mouths were crashing together in a kiss.

Padmé bit down on his lower lip, making him groan, and then she was shoving her tongue into his mouth as Anakin pulled her into his lap. She rolled her hips against him, getting him even more worked up than he already had been. Without stopping for breath or even to wonder what the _hell_ they were doing, Anakin maneuvered them so that Padmé was on her back and he was kneeling over her.

He roughly pushed her nightgown up around her hips and tugged her panties off, throwing them carelessly over his shoulder, while Padmé shoved his pajama pants and boxers down to his knees. Anakin didn't even bother kicking them all the way off, or taking off his shirt or Padmé's nightgown. She captured his lips in another fierce kiss, and Anakin lined himself up with her entrance before pushing inside, finding her wet and waiting for him.

They moaned into each other's mouths as Anakin started moving, short, rapid thrusts that made the bed shake. Padmé was digging her fingernails into his back so hard he thought she was going to draw blood. Neither said a word, and they were trying to keep their noises to a minimum since Shmi was sleeping right next door, though the bed kept thumping against the wall with every thrust.

Anakin felt his end rapidly approaching, and he quickly slid a hand between Padmé's legs to get her there first. A moment later she was gasping and clenching and unclenching around him, which sent Anakin over the edge. He bit her shoulder to muffle his groan as his climax washed over him, and she hissed in a combination of pleasure and pain.

They stayed there frozen and staring at each other as they gradually started to realize what had just happened. Finally Anakin slipped out of her and worked on pulling his pajama pants up again, avoiding her eyes and feeling his face heat up. After a minute he forced himself to look back over; Padmé had pulled her nightgown back down and was also red-faced.

She cleared her throat. "That was just, um…it didn't mean anything," she said. "It's been a long time since either of us got laid, so…we had a lot of pent-up, um, sexual frustration. That's all it was."

Anakin nodded, seizing on the excuse with relief. "Exactly. Didn't mean anything." He coughed awkwardly. "Um, I'm gonna go shower now."

Padmé nodded without even looking at him, examining her fingernails as if she was bored.

By some miracle Shmi didn't seem to have heard anything, so Anakin and Padmé were the only ones uncomfortable during breakfast an hour later. Throughout the day, Padmé did a remarkable job of acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and Anakin did his best to follow her lead. His mind was working overtime to make sense of the situation, though he couldn't even begin to figure out how _he_ felt about it, let alone how Padmé might feel.

That night, they were alone again in the bedroom and a horrifically awkward silence reigned as they both got ready for bed. At last, when they were both under the covers, Padmé spoke. "Look," she said. "About what happened this morning, I was thinking…maybe it could be good for us."

Anakin rolled over to look at her. "Good for us?" he repeated with a puzzled frown.

"You know, like a friends-with-benefits type of thing," she said; it was dark, but he was pretty sure she was blushing. "I mean, we're going to be stuck living together for the next few months anyway, and we can't really go out and get laid with other people because if anyone heard about it they'd think we were cheating on each other and it would be a whole big thing."

"Good point," Anakin said. He considered the prospect. "Are you sure it won't be weird?"

Padmé shrugged. "Was it weird this morning?"

"No," Anakin said, surprising even himself. Now that they were actually talking about it like rational and mature adults, he realized that his embarrassment had only hit after the fact. During the actual moment, it had felt… _right._ "Was it weird for you?"

"No," she said, which made him feel inordinately pleased. "So…what do you think?"

"Casual, no strings attached sex for a few months, and then we'll get divorced and go back to just being regular friends," Anakin mused.

"Exactly."

"I'm in," he said, and Padmé smiled.

Anakin felt more content as he fell asleep than he had in at least a week, if not longer. No more worrying about accidentally walking in on Padmé at an inappropriate time. Finally, they had an outlet for their sexual frustration. And even better, they were doing it without getting feelings involved and making everything messy and complicated.

What could possibly go wrong?


	4. Chapter 4

"There," Padmé said, flipping her compact mirror shut. "Do I look like I spent the past thirty minutes having sex in a tiny bathroom stall?"

"Nope. Me?"

She reached out and tried to comb Anakin's hair down with her fingers. "Well, I guess your hair usually looks like that anyway," she said, dropping her hand.

He raised his eyebrows. "Like what?"

"Like you've never owned a comb in your life."

"Gee, thanks."

"You go out first, I'll follow in a few minutes so it's not obvious."

Anakin poked his head out of the stall and saw that the coast was clear, so he headed all the way outside, strolling out of the women's restroom as casually and unnoticeably as he could manage.

And he would've gotten away with it if not for two of Obi-Wan's six senses: his eagle eyes and his Anakin-is-doing-something-he-shouldn't radar. "Where have you been?"

Anakin nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around to see Obi-Wan standing there. "Where did you come from?"

"The reception of my dear friend Ahsoka's wedding, a place that _you_ haven't been seen at for quite some time," he said, leading Anakin over towards an empty table.

"I wasn't gone that long," Anakin muttered, slouching after him. _Please don't notice Padmé, please don't notice Padmé._

Two minutes later: "Interesting. It seems that Padmé is _also_ emerging from that same restroom, making this _also_ the first time I've seen _her_ in quite some time."

Anakin shifted in his seat, trying not to sweat. "Funny coincidence."

Obi-Wan gave him a look that clearly said _Cut the BS._ "There's something going on between you two," he said.

"Yeah, in case you've forgotten, we've been married for the past two months," Anakin snarked.

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

Anakin glanced around the room. Padmé had gone over to talk with Sabé and Rabé, and there was no one nearby who was paying his and Obi-Wan's conversation any attention. "All right, fine," he said under his breath. "We're, um…we've started a, ah, a friends-with-benefits relationship. Well, technically, spouses-with-benefits."

"You're sleeping together?" Obi-Wan said incredulously.

"Yes," Anakin mumbled, not sure why he was so embarrassed. There was nothing wrong with having casual and mutually enjoyable sex with a friend. One he was legally married to, no less. What reason did Obi-Wan have to judge him?

Obi-Wan sighed heavily. "Oh, Anakin."

"What? It's not a big deal," Anakin insisted. "It's just casual, no strings, and it's only until we get our divorce and then everything will go back to normal."

Obi-Wan was shaking his head. "You can't do no strings."

"What do you mean? Of course you can."

"I didn't mean you generally, I meant you, Anakin, specifically, are not capable of no strings."

"I am so!"

"You most certainly are not, you latch onto people like your life depends on it. Now, I'm not going to bother Ahsoka with this at her own wedding, but she'd agree with me if she were here."

As if the words had conjured her, Ahsoka suddenly appeared. "Hey guys!" she exclaimed, plopping down at the table beside them. "I feel like I've barely seen you all day."

"I'm not surprised, there's so many people here." Anakin leaned over to give her a hug. "Congratulations again, Snips. Where's Riyo?"

"Oh, she got snapped up by a pack of relatives a little while ago, so I've been making the rounds by myself. Are you guys having a good time?"

"Amazing."

"The ceremony was beautiful," Obi-Wan agreed.

"And so's the food," Anakin said, popping a finger sandwich into his mouth.

Ahsoka put her elbows on the table and leaned in. "So, what were we gossiping about just now?" she said conspiratorially.

"Nothing," said Anakin, just as Obi-Wan said, "Anakin and Padmé are sleeping together."

Ahsoka's jaw dropped. _"What?"_

"Shut _up!"_ Anakin said crossly. "I told you not to tell anyone!"

"No, you didn't."

"Well, it was _implied."_

"How long has this been going on?" Ahsoka demanded, looking delighted.

"Just a few weeks. It's really not a big deal, I don't know why you two are freaking out."

"He claims it's just casual, and I told him he can't do casual," Obi-Wan said. "There's no way."

"Oh, none at all," Ahsoka said gleefully. "Honestly, Skyguy, have you ever watched movies? Have you ever watched even _one_ movie? Friends with benefits _never_ works out."

"Well, duh, because there wouldn't be a movie if it did work out," Anakin said. "But this is real life, not a movie, so it's going to work out. Obi-Wan, I can't believe you're bothering Ahsoka with this at her own wedding."

"Oh, no, please bother me some more," Ahsoka said. "This is the juiciest piece of gossip since you and Padmé accidentally got married. Oh boy, don't tell me next you're going to accidentally knock her up or something."

" _God,_ no," Anakin spluttered. "Can we please not talk about this? It's none of either of you's business, okay?"

Obi-Wan sniffed and took a sip of champagne. "Don't come crying to me when things get messy and you get your heart broken."

"I won't, because that's not going to happen."

"Sure, Anakin."

* * *

"So, our 'honeymoon,'" Anakin said. "Where do you want to go? We said we'd do it at the halfway point, three months, and it's been two now."

"Hmm." They were lying in bed after a… _strenuous_ start to their Saturday, not cuddling per se but not uncomfortable with their bodies brushing together the way they would've been before. "I've always wanted to go to Italy," Padmé said.

"Italy? Then we should've gotten plane tickets ages ago, they'll be way too expensive by now."

"So?"

"So I guess you're paying for them, then."

"What am I, your sugar mama?"

"I mean, I'd be happy with a honeymoon to the Cape, so if you want to go to Italy you're paying for it."

Padmé laughed. "Fine, I'll pay for it. You do want to go, though? Or is your heart set on the Cape?"

"My heart's set on anywhere where there's you and a bed," Anakin said, making her laugh again.

He shifted his position a little so that he was facing her more fully. Impulsively, he reached out and brushed a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, his hand lingering a little on her cheek as he lowered it. Padmé's eyes were closed and a lazy smile was on her face, the morning sunlight hitting her hair just so. She was…beautiful, Anakin realized in surprise. He could stay here and look at her forever.

Suddenly, Ahsoka's words from a month ago were echoing in his head. _One day I was looking at her and thinking about how beautiful she was, and then I knew my feelings had changed._

Anakin's heart skipped a beat. But…no, that couldn't be what was happening. Sure, his feelings for Padmé were a _little_ different now than before they'd started sleeping together, but the only difference was that he found her physically attractive in a way he hadn't considered before. It was no deeper than that.

He didn't notice that her eyes had opened again. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.

Anakin quickly looked away, turning slightly pink. "I was just spacing out," he said. "Italy sounds perfect."

And so a month later, they were landing at Fiumicino Airport. They were spending a few days in Rome to do Padmé's required sightseeing and museum visits, then the rest of the week up north by Lake Como for Anakin's required relaxation. To Anakin, Rome was overcrowded and loud and dirty, but Padmé adored it.

"There's just so much history everywhere you look," she gushed at the Forum. "Ooh, come look over here!" Personally, Anakin didn't see what was so great about a bunch of rocks and mostly-destroyed columns, but if it made her happy he was willing to break his ankles on the lumpy ancient pavestones for a couple hours and not complain.

 _Whipped,_ said a snide voice in his head which he studiously ignored.

On the way to Como they stopped in Venice, where they took the requisite Couple Pictures to prove to everyone back home what a terribly romantic time they were having on their "honeymoon." The next morning they headed up to the lake and arrived in the afternoon.

"Finally," Anakin sighed, flopping into a chair on the balcony of their hotel room which overlooked the lake. It was quite a nice hotel; he didn't even want to know how much Padmé had paid for it. He had chipped in to _some_ extent on all their travel expenses, but in all honesty he was pretty sure she was paying about eighty percent. It _had_ been her idea.

"You didn't like the cities?" Padmé asked, coming out to sit with him.

"They were fine, but I thought this honeymoon was going to be about relaxing, not walking twenty miles a day back and forth across the city because we can't figure out the public transportation."

She chuckled and stretched her legs out, resting her feet in his lap. "My feet hurt."

"Tell me about it."

"Massage them for me?"

Anakin snorted. "That wasn't in our marital agreement."

"Pleeease?"

Padmé looked at him so beseechingly that he found himself giving her a ten-minute foot massage, as any good platonic friend would. "Now my turn," he said, moving his own feet towards her.

Padmé shoved them away. "Eww, no way."

"Come on, it's only fair."

"I have _clean_ feet."

"My feet are perfectly clean."

"I'm not touching them."

"Ugh, fine." Anakin got up from his chair and went to stand over hers, putting his hands on the armrests and leaning down to kiss her. "You owe me something else, then," he murmured against her lips.

Padmé giggled, grabbing the front of his T-shirt and pulling him closer. "What do you have in mind?"

Anakin proceeded to show her. But in the privacy of their room, not out on the balcony. Only because Padmé insisted the risk of other people seeing them wasn't a turn-on, though Anakin personally found the potential danger kind of sexy.

Now they were truly on a honeymoon, sex when they woke up and before they went to bed, relaxing on the balcony or strolling around the cute little lakeside towns in between. But because it was Padmé who was his wife, Anakin found himself being dragged to a historic villa on the second to last day. "It's gorgeous, you'll love it," she insisted when he whined.

Indeed, Anakin's jaw dropped a little when their boat went around a bend and the villa came into view. "Wow," he said, and Padmé looked smug.

They toured the inside of the house first and learned all about the history, and after that they were free to wander the gardens outside for as long as they wanted. "This _is_ really beautiful," Anakin admitted, resting his forearms on the stone balcony railing and gazing out across the lake.

Padmé did the same. "It would be a good place for a wedding," she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah. Too bad we're already married. I-I mean, not that this would be a good place for _our_ wedding," Anakin said hastily, feeling his cheeks heat up. "But I'll keep it in mind for later when I marry someone for real."

"Yeah. For real." For the splittest of seconds he could've sworn he saw hurt on Padmé's face, but then she was smiling again and he figured he must've imagined it. "So you're glad I dragged you here?" she said.

"Definitely."

Anakin glanced sideways at her, and he felt it again. The alarming realization of how beautiful she was. For a minute, he didn't care about the villa or the gardens or the lake. None of them compared to Padmé.

He slid his hand across the railing and rested it on top of hers, and when she looked at him in surprise he bent down and pressed his lips against hers. They kissed for a long moment, slow and tender and romantic. Not like any of the other kisses they'd shared before. Everything up until then had been purely physical, their kisses only intended as a prelude to sex, never just because. Anakin had never kissed her like this. Part of him thought he'd never kissed anyone like this.

At last Padmé drew back slightly, gazing at him with puzzlement and perhaps a hint of something else in her eyes. "What was that for?" she asked softly, their faces still so close that her breath tickled his lips.

"I don't know," Anakin said honestly. He tried to give her a careless smile, though he wasn't sure if he managed it. "Just playing the part of happy newlyweds on their honeymoon."

But in the back of his mind, he wondered if he was doing more pretending as a casual friend-with-benefits when the two of them were alone than he was as a loving husband when other people were around.

* * *

The next three months flew by. Anakin had settled so naturally into his role as Padmé's husband that he probably should've been alarmed by it. And the sex was some of the best he'd ever had, something he admitted only to himself and never to her. Why had it taken them so many years to experiment in that regard?

Life was pretty good…but then he'd always remember how soon everything was going to end. Anakin didn't know why he was dreading it all of a sudden; back at the beginning he could hardly wait for the six months to be over. He supposed it was probably just because before, the divorce had meant getting his normal peaceful life back, and now it meant no more sex and no more nice spacious apartment and no more of Padmé's snoring in his ear and her warm, soft body beside him every night while he was falling asleep—

 _Honestly,_ he scolded himself. It wasn't like he was never going to see her again, for crying out loud. They would still be best friends, as close as they'd always been. He was being ridiculous.

"So, are you counting down the days towards freedom?" Bail joked at the bar one evening.

"Freedom?" Anakin said blankly.

"Your divorce, which is scheduled for…three weeks from now?"

"Well, we haven't started the proceedings yet, so it'll take much longer than three weeks," Padmé said.

"Oh," Anakin said. "I guess we should've started looking into that a while ago."

She shrugged. "It won't be a big deal. We don't have to rush. Uncontested divorces are much simpler."

"And faster," added Satine, who was a lawyer herself and knew these things. "In Massachusetts, if you go to court to file an uncontested divorce, it'll be legalized about four months after the court visit. So you two can start spreading the news now that you're separating and Anakin can move back to his own place, and then you can say you're just waiting for the final paperwork to come through and finally be able to drop the act and go back to normal."

Anakin swallowed. "That'll sure be a relief," he said, feeling oddly hollow. He took a large sip of his drink and didn't look at Padmé.

And so that weekend, he found himself looking for roommate wanted ads on Craigslist. Again. His old roommates had already replaced him and didn't want him back now. He'd just fired off an email to a couple guys who seemed okay when his phone rang. "Hello?"

"Oh, Ani, I'm so sorry to hear the news," said Shmi's voice on the other end. "Are you all right?"

It took him only a second to realize she meant the upcoming divorce, the news of which his and Padmé's friends had kindly offered to start spreading around for them, and who were they to say no? Though Anakin had emailed it to Shmi himself, feeling that if he'd gotten married without telling her the least he could do was let her know about the divorce before she heard through another source.

"Yeah, I-I'm fine," he said. "We both agreed it was for the best, it's totally amicable. No hard feelings."

"Are you sure? I know you wouldn't want to talk badly about Padmé to lots of people, but you can tell me if you're upset about something she—"

"No, no, she didn't do anything," Anakin said firmly. "It was mutual. Our whole relationship was just such a whirlwind, we realized we'd been too impulsive and that it just wasn't going to work long term. So we decided to split up now rather than risk waiting until our friendship got damaged."

"So you're still friends?" Shmi sounded surprised.

"Of course. Best friends. She'll always be my best friend," Anakin said, almost to himself. _And no more than that._

"Well, that's good to hear, I'm glad there's no animosity," she replied. Then she sighed. "But still, you two just seemed so _happy_ together when I came to visit. I know that was a few months ago—"

"A lot can change in a few months." Oh, it could indeed.

"Yes, I suppose so. But—"

"I appreciate your concern, Mom, but I don't really want to talk about it right now," Anakin said quietly.

"Oh. Yes, of course, I'm sorry," Shmi said. "But I'm here if you ever _do_ want to talk, okay? Or if you need anything at all. Just let me know."

"I will. Thanks. Love you."

"I love you too, honey."

By the time four months had passed, Anakin had moved into his new apartment, which was just as cheap and dumpy as the old one. He thumbed through the pile of mail on the kitchen table and his heart plummeted when he saw a large envelope from the courthouse addressed to him. He took a deep breath, then slowly opened it.

 _Final decree of divorce._

Anakin stared dully down at the packet of papers, flipping through them without really reading a word. And then, for some reason, his feet were directing him out the door and towards the subway.

He got off at Padmé's stop, and five minutes later he was buzzing up to her apartment. "Hey," he said when he arrived upstairs and she let him in. He held up the papers. "Did you get these too?"

She nodded and indicated her own packet sitting on the table. "So," she said. "I guess this is it."

"I guess so." Anakin hesitated, then stepped towards her. "One last hurrah?" he said, trying for a smile. "For old times' sake?"

Padmé smiled back and nodded, then pulled him in for a kiss.

Anakin made love to her like never before. Really, this was the first time he could've even called it making love rather than just fucking. He was deliberately as slow as possible, trying to make it last as long as he could, knowing it was the last time. He teased her until she was breathlessly begging him for mercy, and when he finally slid inside her he set a slow, sensual pace. They came undone together, her name on the tip of his tongue though he didn't dare say it aloud.

Anakin climbed out of bed and slowly got dressed again, seeing Padmé do the same out of the corner of his eye. She walked him to the door, neither saying a word, and they lingered for a moment. "Well," Anakin said at last. "Enjoy single life."

Padmé gave a small chuckle. "You too. I'll see you soon?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

Anakin spent the rest of the day in a daze, still hardly able to believe it was real. The marriage they'd made one drunken night in Vegas, finally over. For good.

It was only at Ahsoka's urging that he dragged himself out of the apartment to hang out with her and Obi-Wan that night. "So, do you want to go out and get drunk to celebrate finally getting a divorce and putting this ridiculous shenanigan to an end?" she asked, grinning.

Anakin just shrugged, staring blankly at his feet. Seeing the divorce papers swimming in front of his eyes over and over again.

"Anakin?" Ahsoka said, now sounding concerned. "Are you okay?"

Anakin took a shuddering breath and looked up. "You were right," he told Obi-Wan.

"I know. What about?"

"I…" Anakin swallowed, feeling tears in the corners of his eyes. "I'm in love with her," he said softly.

Obi-Wan sighed. "Oh, Anakin," he murmured as Ahsoka came over and enveloped him in a hug.

* * *

 **I easily could've dragged all these delightful shenanigans out for many more chapters, but I decided to keep this fic short n sweet, so only 1 more chapter + brief epilogue to go! The lake villa they travel to on their "honeymoon" is the Villa del Balbianello on Lake Como, the real-life location where they shot the Varykino scenes in AotC. I visited it myself a few weeks ago (1000/10 would recommend) so I couldn't resist putting it in this fic :D also I'm in Rome for the semester and idk why I made Anakin drag it so much because /I/ love it lmao I'm definitely on Padme's side for this one**


	5. Chapter 5

Anakin and Padmé had _said_ everything would go back to normal, but in the three months following the divorce they barely saw each other or even spoke. For Anakin's part, he was constantly torn between the need to see her and the knowledge that it would be too painful to be around her while pretending nothing had changed, pretending his feelings were the same as they had been a year ago. So he often made excuses when their whole friend group wanted to hang out, and he couldn't help but wonder if she was doing the same thing seeing as even on the few occasions he _did_ agree to hang out, she usually wasn't there.

Their other friends assumed it was because they were continuing the charade even further—it would be odd for recently divorced exes to be spending much time together, even if they did claim the divorce was completely amicable—but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka knew the truth. "Why don't you just tell her how you feel?" Obi-Wan asked one day.

Anakin shook his head. "I'd ruin everything," he said simply. "She can't possibly feel the same way, so if she knew it would just make her uncomfortable and our friendship would get even more awkward than it already is."

"What makes you think she can't feel the same way?"

"Because—because she's _her_ and I'm _me._ She's so far out of my league it's not even funny," Anakin said with a humorless laugh. "And have you seen the other guys she's dated? They were all intellectual and rich and fancy and successful, I'm about as far from her type as you can get."

"We all say we have a type until the person comes along who defies it," Ahsoka said. "Just because Padmé's dated guys like that in the past doesn't mean they're the only ones she'd ever be interested in. Besides, she seemed happy enough sleeping with you for several months, would it really be that hard to extend physical attraction to genuine romantic interest? _You_ made that leap, maybe she has too."

"Exactly," said Obi-Wan. "I still don't see why you won't tell her. Wouldn't it feel better to get it off your chest?"

"No, because she would never talk to me again and I would be miserable."

"You're miserable now," Ahsoka said softly.

Anakin didn't have anything to counter that point.

But the following weekend provided a welcome distraction: Bail and Breha's wedding. Their respective bachelor and bachelorette parties had been, thankfully, much tamer than Ahsoka's, and the wedding itself was very elegant. And quite large; Anakin was sitting near Padmé during the ceremony but lost her completely during the reception, there were so many people there. That was probably for the best, he mused while munching on appetizers at a table with Obi-Wan, Satine, Ahsoka, and Riyo and feeling very much like a fifth wheel. Being around Padmé would only make him gloomy and he didn't want to be a party-pooper at his friends' wedding.

On the other hand, sitting at a wedding reception between one recently and one soon-to-be married couple was really impressing upon him how single he was. And how lonely. "I'm going to walk around a little," he said eventually, standing up.

The others waved him off, and Anakin headed out. The wedding was being held at a beautiful mansion, so after leaving the tent that had tables set up under it Anakin decided to stroll through the gardens. The guests were spread out all over the grounds, and after a few minutes he came upon another group of tables at which he spotted Sabé, Rabé, Dormé, and her boyfriend.

The former three glanced at him and looked away, but the boyfriend smiled and waved so Anakin went over to sit with them. "Hey guys," he said. "How are—?"

But he stumbled to a halt as he spotted something a little ways away. Padmé, talking to… _someone._ Anakin couldn't see at first, but then a person nearby moved slightly and his stomach jolted as he saw that it was Rush Clovis, Padmé's most recent ex (they'd broken up a little over a year before Vegas). Well, technically, _Anakin_ was her most recent ex.

"What's Rush Clovis doing here?" Anakin asked, scowling.

Dormé shrugged. "He works with Bail."

"But Padmé's one of Bail's best friends. You'd think Clovis being his friend's ex would trump him being his coworker."

"So why did Bail invite _you,_ then?"

Anakin rolled his eyes. "That's totally different and you know it."

"They didn't have a bad breakup, and they were only together a few months in the first place," Rabé pointed out. "Besides, they work together so they stayed friends." Padmé, Clovis, and Bail all worked in Boston's statehouse.

"She certainly doesn't seem to mind that he's here," Sabé noted. "And _I_ always kinda liked him."

"He's an ass," Anakin muttered.

"You're one to talk," Rabé muttered.

Anakin blinked at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," she said, pulling out her phone and not looking at him.

"Yes, I liked him too," Dormé said. "He never took her for granted."

Something about the way she said it made Anakin feel like that was also a dig at him, though he couldn't for the life of him fathom why. Just then, he heard Padmé's beautiful laughter floating across the lawn, and his scowl deepened when he looked over and saw her and Clovis smiling at each other.

"Is she _flirting_ with him?" Anakin said, still staring daggers at Clovis.

"So what if she is? It's none of _your_ business," Sabé shot back.

Anakin managed to tear his eyes away from Padmé and Clovis to glare at his tablemates. "Are you guys mad at me or something?" he demanded.

"No," Rabé said, her tone implying very much the opposite.

"What did I ever do to you?" He couldn't think of a single potential offense. In fact, he'd barely spent time with the three of them lately, they'd always been more Padmé's friends than his.

"Nothing to _us."_

"What?"

But they kept their mouths firmly shut, and Dormé's boyfriend just gave him an apologetic yet equally clueless shrug. "Whatever," Anakin said, annoyed. "I'll see you later."

He stood to leave, involuntarily glancing over one more time at Padmé and Clovis. Just in time to see Clovis rest his hand on her waist. Padmé made no move to push him away, only smiled up at him again.

Anakin's ears were buzzing, and before he could stop himself he was marching over there with his hands clenched into fists.

Padmé saw him first. "Anakin," she said, hurriedly taking a small step back from Clovis as if she felt guilty. "How are you enjoying the reception?"

"It's fine," he said shortly, turning his attention to Clovis.

Padmé intervened before he could say anything. "You remember Rush Clovis," she said. "Rush, this is my friend Anakin, I know you've met once or twice before—"

"Ex-husband, actually," Anakin said, glowering at Clovis.

"Ah, yes. I heard about your…brief marriage," Clovis said in a tone that was either polite or patronizing, Anakin couldn't quite tell. Though personally he thought it was the latter.

"Anakin, I thought we'd agreed we were putting that whole silly thing behind us," Padmé said, and it was only because he knew her so well that Anakin could tell she was annoyed behind her pleasant façade.

"Well, I just thought it would be fair for your potential new boyfriends to know that you're recently divorced, that's all," Anakin said snidely, not sure he was so hell-bent on taking his jealousy out on _her_.

To his astonishment, that made Padmé lose her cool. Visibly. "You of all people have no right to interfere in my dating life!" she snapped, angry spots of color coming into her cheeks. "After everything you've put me through—"

"What exactly have I put you through?" Anakin retorted, irritated and bewildered. "The way I remember it, I generously agreed to go along with _your_ stupid, _stupid_ idea to stay married instead of just getting it annulled immediately, and then I _paid you_ to live in your apartment for six months to protect your _stupid_ pride, _and_ I spent most of those six months giving you pretty damn good sex _if_ you recall—"

"Uh, this seems like a private conversation," Clovis interrupted, looking embarrassed. He quickly hurried off.

Padmé grabbed Anakin's arm and dragged him over to the privacy of the hedge maze. "How dare you!" she said once they'd come to a halt near a large fountain safely towards the middle of the maze. "I'm finally free to date whoever I want since I'm no longer married to you and sleeping with you, and you just barge into my conversation and humiliate me in front of Rush—"

"You could've dated and slept with anyone you wanted while we were married! It wasn't a real marriage, remember? I wouldn't have given a shit at the time!" Anakin cried.

"But you do now, is that it?" Padmé said sarcastically. "Now that we're _not_ married or sleeping together anymore, you suddenly care about who I'm dating?"

"Yes! I care so much it feels like I'm being ripped in half!"

Padmé fell silent and stared at him, and Anakin clamped his mouth shut so fast it was a wonder he didn't break any teeth. "What are you saying?" she asked slowly after several moments of deafening silence.

"I—I'm saying…" Anakin took a deep breath and gazed at her openly, finally letting her see his true feelings on his face. "I'm saying I can't fall asleep without you snoring in my ear," he said, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly even as nervous as he was. "I'm saying I hate the milk I used to drink because you got me so used to that stupid expensive kind you just _have_ to have. I'm saying I can't remember how to live a life that doesn't involve waking up next to you every morning. I'm saying I don't know who I am without you. Maybe I'm not anyone without you, at least not anyone worth being. I'm saying—I'm saying I'm completely, ridiculously in love with you."

Padmé's mouth was open, her expression one of utter shock. Anakin stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at his shoes, feeling like an idiot. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything," he mumbled. "It's okay if you don't—I know you've never loved me like that—"

"Never loved you? Ani, I—I've _always_ loved you."

Anakin's head jerked up and now it was his turn to stare in amazement. Padmé's eyes were shining with tears, but she had the beginnings of a smile on her face. "What?" Anakin managed at last. "You…what?"

"Why do you think I was so upset when I realized we'd gotten married while we were _drunk?_ Why do you think I suggested prolonging the stupid thing for six months?" she said. "Sure, part of it was to spare my pride, but…there was another part of me thinking that if I was legally married to the man I'd been in love with for years, I might as well try to make the most of it."

Anakin's brain was working overtime to make sense of this confession. "But—but if you loved me the whole time, why did you insist that it didn't mean anything the first time we slept together?" he asked. "Why were you the one who suggested friends-with-benefits and no strings?"

"Because—after we slept together the first time, I was terrified you'd figure out how I really felt, so I tried to cover my tracks by being the first one to say it didn't mean anything," Padmé said. "And as for the rest of it…well, friends-with-benefits was the only way I could think of to get to be with you for a little while without having to admit how I felt to someone who clearly didn't feel the same way. But…you did?"

"Well, no," Anakin admitted. "Or…maybe. I didn't fully realize how I felt until the divorce, just about, but I think I'd been falling in love with you for a long time before that. I was just too stupid to notice. And I guess I was also too stupid to notice that you'd been in love with me…for years?"

She smiled. "In your defense, I was very good at hiding it."

Anakin just gazed at her for a minute, still trying to reshape all the events of the past year now that he knew Padmé had loved him the whole time. It was so hard to believe, yet at the same time, suddenly everything made so much more sense. Why her drunk self had been so easily persuaded into marrying him—he'd always sort of wondered, because even Plastered Padmé was too rational to do something she didn't at least subconsciously want to do.

"That's why you were so mean to me in the beginning," Anakin realized as his train of thought arrived at the next event in the chronological sequence. "When we first got married, when I first moved in with you. You were always so tense and snippy with me, it was because you didn't want me to figure out how you really felt?"

Padmé nodded, looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Even at the time I knew I was being unfair to you," she said. "But you were treating the situation like some big joke, and I was scared of you realizing it wasn't a joke to me at all. I didn't want you to notice I was actually in love with you, so I overcompensated in the other direction with the way I treated you."

Well, it was no wonder, Anakin thought. She'd secretly been in love with him for years, and suddenly there he was, legally married to her and living in her apartment and being in her personal space 24/7, laughing the whole thing off, acting like none of it mattered to him, constantly saying how absurd the idea of a romantic relationship between them was. No wonder she'd lashed out.

And her strange comments just now about Clovis, getting angry with Anakin for having the nerve to interfere in her love life "after everything he'd put her through." Because he'd been unknowingly hurting her for years, for every day that he didn't love her back. Hell, that was probably why her friends had been so mad at him too, he realized. From their point of view, he was the asshole who'd been ignoring Padmé for years, only to drunkenly marry her, sleep with her for a while, and then divorce her and act like he'd never cared about any of it.

"I'm so sorry," Anakin said, feeling a lump in his throat. "All this time, I've been breaking your heart and—"

"You had no idea, it's not your fault," she soothed him. "I could've easily told you how I felt, but I was too much of a coward."

"Maybe that was for the best," Anakin said. "Because if you'd told me you loved me years ago, I don't know how I would've responded. But now…now I'm ready to hear it."

"Well, then." Padmé let out a breath, her face lighting up again with one of the most beautiful smiles Anakin had ever seen. "Anakin, I—"

At that moment, Anakin moved his foot back a little to shift his weight, but ended up hitting it against the edge of the fountain, losing his balance, and falling backwards into it with a tremendous splash. He flailed around in the water for a second before managing to sit up fully, coughing and spluttering and soaking wet.

"Ani!" Padmé was dropping to her knees next to the fountain, looking worried. "Are you okay? You didn't hit your head, did you? That might cause a concussion and—"

Grinning mischievously, Anakin grabbed her and pulled her into the fountain too, causing her to squeal in surprise. "Anakin!" she said, looking like she was trying to be mad except they were both laughing too hard for it to be very effective. "You ruined my dress!"

"I think you look even better this way," he said, smiling. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer so that she was sitting in his lap. "Now, what were you about to tell me?"

"I was about to say…" Padmé pushed a sopping strand of hair out of his eyes and tucked it gently behind his ear, leaving her hand on his cheek and stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. "Anakin, I'm in love with you."

Anakin's smile widened, his heart soaring. "I'm in love with you too," he said, and then they were kissing. It was just like their kiss by the lake in Italy (albeit much wetter and messier), full of tenderness and genuine love rather than lust.

"What the—?"

"I don't even want to know."

They broke apart and looked up to see Bail and Breha, probably out for what they'd hoped to be a private romantic stroll until they'd come upon Anakin and Padmé making out in the middle of a fountain like a couple of deranged fools.

"Um…congratulations again," Anakin said while Padmé hid her face in his soaked shirt in embarrassment, though he could feel her shaking with laughter.

"Congratulations to the two of you also, apparently," said Bail while Breha beamed at them. "Please, don't let us interrupt."

And they continued on their way, both couples laughing. Then Padmé climbed out of the fountain with a surprising amount of grace and helped Anakin up as well. "Wait a second," he said as they walked back through the maze. "So that first morning, when you 'accidentally'—" he put air quotes around the word with his fingers "—left the door open while you were getting dressed, was that actually an accident or were you just trying to seduce me?"

Padmé burst out laughing. "I swear, it _was_ an accident and I thought I was going to die of mortification when you walked past and saw me," she said. "For years I couldn't bring myself to _tell_ you how I felt, you really think I'd be bold enough to accidentally-on-purpose let you see me naked?"

"Hey, the Padmé Naberrie _I_ know is _very_ bold."

"Not _that_ bold."

They both laughed. A moment later, Anakin realized she was shivering. "I would offer you my jacket, but I don't think it would be much help," he said, and she chuckled again and took his hand.

So they emerged back at the reception holding hands and soaking wet and far too happy to care about all the raised eyebrows and whispers they elicited as they went to look for their friends.

"What the hell happened to you two?"

Anakin turned and saw Sabé approaching them with Rabé and Dormé in tow. "Anakin fell in the fountain because he's an idiot and then pulled me in because he's mean," Padmé said, still smiling to outshine the sun.

"Are you still cold? Because I can think of a few ways to warm you up," Anakin said suggestively, making Padmé giggle and the others gag.

"God, save it," Sabé said. "So are you guys…?"

"Yep," said Padmé, squeezing Anakin's hand. He kissed the top of her head and let go of her hand so he could put his arm around her waist instead.

But then they were separated fully as their friends started squealing and hugging them both. "Oh, that's so amazing!" Rabé gushed. "Congrats!"

"We're so happy for you!" Dormé exclaimed, throwing her arms around Anakin. "Ugh, we've been waiting so long for this."

He bemusedly accepted the hug. "So do you not hate me anymore, or…?"

"No," they chorused, grinning.

"Turns out you're not an ass after all," Rabé added.

"What are you talking about?" Padmé said, looking puzzled.

"They were just— _eviscerating_ me earlier today," Anakin said, shaking his head. "I was really confused. And pissed."

Sabé sniffed. "Well, imagine how pissed _we_ were when we thought you'd been stringing our best friend along for months but didn't actually give a shit about her beyond sex."

"What? I _told_ you guys he didn't do anything wrong and you shouldn't be mad at him," Padmé said. "Honestly."

Dormé shrugged. "Sorry. But you're too nice to give people who treat you wrong what they deserve, so we have to do it for you."

"Well, I appreciate it. But next time double check with me before you decide to eviscerate someone on my behalf, okay?"

Next they ran into Obi-Wan, Satine, Ahsoka, and Riyo, all of whom were equally thrilled to hear the good news. "Man, Anakin's been moping about you for months, I thought he was gonna be the death of us both," Ahsoka told Padmé while Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. "Thank God you got everything straightened out. Also, you guys are such idiots."

"Trust me, we know," Anakin said.

"Wait, so you knew Anakin had feelings for me?" Padmé asked.

"Yeah. But he only told us the day the divorce went through, we haven't known _that_ long."

"So you two knew he had feelings for me, Sabé, Rabé, and Dormé knew _I_ had feelings for _him…_ why couldn't you have just consulted with each other and saved us both a lot of trouble?"

"Hey, that's a good point," Anakin said indignantly. "I can't believe you guys kept it a secret the way I asked you to. Worst friends ever."

Obi-Wan just rolled his eyes and told him he was _this close_ to having his best man status revoked.

The rest of the reception passed much more enjoyably than the beginning (especially once their clothes began to dry). At one point Anakin caught a glimpse of Clovis, who watched the two of them slow-dancing together before shaking his head and walking off in a different direction, clearly having gotten the message.

"Why were you even flirting with Clovis earlier?" Anakin asked, having practically forgotten about the incident after everything else that had happened.

Padmé shrugged. "I didn't think you liked me and I knew he did, and I thought it was about time I tried seriously to move on from you. But once I found out you _did_ like me, I couldn't have cared less about him."

"Ouch. Harsh," Anakin said, though he was grinning.

She snorted. "You were the one who looked like you were about to punch him a few hours ago. Besides, he'll find someone else that's better for him than I was."

Anakin had gotten a ride over from Obi-Wan and Satine, so Padmé drove him home that night. "Can I please move in with you again?" Anakin said when they were almost there. "I hate my apartment."

"I thought we were going to take things slow," Padmé replied. "You know, not get married before going on our first date, that kind of thing."

"Well, yes, but we already know we cohabitate well," Anakin pointed out. "We did it for six months without wanting to kill each other."

"That's debatable." Then she smiled. "I _have_ missed your dirty laundry being thrown all over the floor."

"Excuse me, I only leave _clean_ laundry on the floor because I don't feel like putting it back in the drawers. Dirty laundry always goes straight to the hamper."

"Well, if you leave clean laundry on the floor long enough it becomes dirty."

"Not on _your_ floors. You could eat off your floors."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Obviously."

"Anyway, if you want to inconvenience a second set of roommates by unexpectedly moving out, go right ahead," Padmé said. "The tiny empty spot on the shower shelves is begging for your one bottle of shampoo to come back home."

They pulled up in front of his apartment. "Home," Anakin murmured. "My one bottle of shampoo wants to come home too."

Padmé leaned in and kissed him deeply. "My shower shelves and I will be waiting for you and your shampoo bright and early tomorrow morning," she said.

"It's a date." Anakin kissed her one more time. "Goodnight. I love you."

"I love you too."

* * *

"Hi, Ani. How are you?"

"Hi, Mom. I actually have something to tell you."

"What?"

"Um…Padmé and I are together."

"You and Padmé? But—I thought—didn't you just get divorced a few months ago? Hmm, you know I won't judge you for your dating life, but you said yourself your relationship with her was too much of a whirlwind, I don't know if it's such a good idea to—"

"Wait, you're misunderstanding. You see, we…uh, we didn't exactly tell you the _whole_ truth about our marriage. To start, we didn't really _mean_ to get married…"

* * *

 **Fountain shenanigans 100% inspired by Princess Diaries 2 :D I don't think I've personally ever come across a fic where /Padme/ was secretly in love with Anakin for years and /he/ was the one who was slow to get there (seeing as in canon it's the opposite), so I thought that would be a fun little twist :)**


	6. Epilogue

**Two Years Later**

"I told you this would be a good place for a wedding."

"I never disagreed," Anakin said, chuckling.

"I guess that's true," Padmé said. "But you _did_ say you'd keep it in mind as a wedding venue for when you married someone 'for real.' Someone who wasn't me, I'm sure you meant."

"Did I?" Anakin pulled her closer and nuzzled her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her shampoo. "Well, I think this counts as getting married 'for real.' Even if it _is_ to you."

They were back at the villa by Lake Como, having annoyed all their friends and family by making them fly all the way out to Italy for a destination wedding. But in Anakin's opinion, it was more than worth it. So was the astronomical cost of renting out the villa for the day. Though Padmé was paying most of it, so what did he care?

"This definitely beats our first wedding," he said a minute later.

Padmé laughed in agreement. "In _literally_ every single way."

"I don't know, that tiny black dress you were wearing was pretty hot."

"Really? Better than this one?"

"Hmm." Anakin pulled back and pretended to think about it so that he could have an excuse to drink in the sight of her in her wedding dress for the hundredth time that day. "No. Not even close," he decided. "You look like an angel today. And every day, of course. But especially today."

Padmé smiled and wrapped her arms around him again. "Good answer."

They were dancing together on the balcony overlooking the lake, surrounded by many increasingly drunken guests. Both of them were completely sober, though; Padmé had said that she, Anakin, weddings, and alcohol _really_ didn't mix, and Anakin had agreed that he'd love to be able to remember this one.

Out of the corner of his eye Anakin saw Ruwee and Jobal Naberrie dancing together, and suddenly he thought of a question he'd once asked Padmé jokingly. "Your parents eloped but never mentioned it to you until a few years ago," he said. "So, will we tell our kids the true story of our wedding?"

Padmé burst out laughing. _"This_ wedding is a perfectly good true story," she said. "Very romantic and wholesome."

"But will we tell them the true story of _both_ weddings?"

"I don't know. Maybe when they're older. I'm sure they'd get a kick out of it."

"Maybe," Anakin said thoughtfully. "Well, we have plenty of time to decide."

Padmé ducked her head, turning slightly pink. "Actually…maybe less time than you might think," she said.

Anakin could've sworn his heart stopped beating for a second. "What?"

She placed her hand on her stomach and smiled shyly, and that was all Anakin needed to know before he was kissing her senseless. "You—what—when did you find out?" he demanded when he could finally speak, feeling tears spring to his eyes.

"A few days ago," Padmé said, beaming and also teary-eyed. "I _was_ going to wait until tonight to tell you to be extra romantic, but…"

"You've known for _days_ and didn't tell me?"

"Well, you know now," she said, utterly unfazed.

Anakin let out a breathless laugh and rested his forehead against hers. "Pregnant before the wedding day. Whatever will people say?"

"Yes, I'm sure it'll be a shock for our Puritan community," Padmé said dryly, making him laugh again.

"I suppose we already scandalized them once with our divorce and remarriage."

"Oh, quite."

They weren't even really dancing anymore, just standing there holding each other close. "Do you ever feel so happy you feel like your heart's going to explode?" Anakin asked. "I mean, literally. You should probably ask someone where the closest hospital is, just in case."

"They'd have to send a boat to come get you, and then an ambulance would have to make its way through the winding narrow mountain roads to get you to the hospital. It would take ages," Padmé said. "If your heart explodes here, you're just gonna die."

"Wow. So comforting. Remind me not to let you write my eulogy."

"Who says you're dying first?"

"I sure hope I do. I can't imagine living even one day without you," Anakin said frankly.

Padmé gave him a soft smile. "And you think I could?"

"Definitely. You've always been stronger than me. Besides, our child will be there to comfort you and help you get through it," he said, smiling and resting his hand on her stomach. "You'll move out here to the lake where we got married to help cope with the grief of losing me, and then you'll meet a dashing elderly Italian and fall madly in love and get remarried and live out the rest of your life farming olives with him. I'll be a little jealous in the afterlife, but mostly I'll just be glad that you're not lonely anymore. But once you both die too, you're totally leaving the Italian to spend eternity with me, because I'm your first and second husband and he's only your third."

"Oh, unquestionably," Padmé said solemnly, her lips twitching to betray a smile. "Remind me again why we're talking about death on our wedding day?"

"I forget. Oh, that's right, hearts exploding with happiness."

"Ah, yes." She stood up on tiptoes to kiss him. "You'd better get ready to call that ambulance, because my happiness is just about at the heart-exploding level."

Anakin chuckled. "I love you so much," he said fondly. "You have no _idea_ how much."

"I can't wait for you to show me how much later tonight," Padmé said, smirking a little.

Anakin smirked back, but then he frowned. "Wait. It's still okay to have sex when you're pregnant, right?"

"No, we're not allowed to touch each other for nine months," Padmé said sarcastically. "Of course it's okay, dumbass."

"I was just making sure. I don't want to hurt the baby."

"If you're going to be this overprotective and ridiculous for the whole pregnancy, I want a divorce."

"Yeah? I could go for having a third wedding."

They both laughed, then fell into comfortable silence for a moment. "I wonder if we'd be here if not for Vegas," Padmé mused. "Do you think you ever would've realized you were in love with me if we hadn't accidentally gotten married?"

"I'm sure I would've eventually," Anakin said. "Maybe it would've taken longer, I guess. But the universe would've had to give up and let me figure out who my soulmate was _someday."_

"You think we're soulmates?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I think any version of me would fall in love with any version of you, in any universe."

Padmé smiled and rested her head contentedly on his chest. "So do I."

* * *

 **And that's the end! I had lots of fun with this lil fic and I hope you guys enjoyed it :D I'll be back soon with a few one-shots for Tumblr's Anidala Week in May!**


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